SEOUL, July 26 (AJP) -There is no shortage of Korean dramas built around chaebol heirs falling in love against the odds. Real life has produced stories just as compelling — except that the endings are often written not by scriptwriters but by judges.
Record 944 billion won ($680 million) divorce award involving SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and former wife Roh Soh-yeong last Friday has added another chapter to the small club of Korea's most consequential corporate breakups, where failed marriages have altered family fortunes, tested succession plans and redefined the legal treatment of billionaire wealth.
Unlike television dramas, where romance typically triumphs over wealth and family opposition, Korea's real-life chaebol love stories have often unfolded under relentless public scrutiny, ending in courtroom battles over corporate empires worth trillions of won.
The SK saga: A marriage that united business and politics
Few unions carried greater symbolic weight than the marriage of Chey Tae-won and Roh Soh-yeong.
When they married in 1988, Chey was the son of SK founder Chey Jong-hyun while Roh was the daughter of then-President Roh Tae-woo, creating one of Korea's most influential power couples.
Over nearly three decades, Roh stood beside Chey as SK evolved from a domestic energy company into one of the world's most valuable AI memory chipmakers.
Their marriage unraveled publicly after Chey disclosed that he had fathered a child outside the marriage and sought divorce in 2017.
After years of legal battles culminating in Thursday's remand ruling, the Seoul High Court ordered Chey to pay Roh 944 billion won in cash while recognizing her 33.3 percent contribution to the couple's jointly accumulated wealth over almost 30 years of marriage.
The finalized award is the largest publicly disclosed property settlement involving a Korean business family.
It follows an earlier appellate ruling in 2024 ordering Chey to pay 1.38 trillion won, which was later overturned by the Supreme Court after it found errors in the lower court's reasoning regarding former President Roh's alleged political slush funds.
Samsung's Cinderella romance
Long before the SK divorce dominated headlines, another corporate romance had captured the country's imagination.
Hotel Shilla President Lee Boo-jin, the eldest daughter of late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee, fell in love with Lim Woo-jae, then a Samsung security employee.
Their 1999 marriage was widely portrayed as a rare Cinderella story inside Korea's most powerful conglomerate.
The fairy tale ended in 2014 when Lee filed for divorce.
During the proceedings, Lim reportedly argued that Lee's personal fortune exceeded 2.5 trillion won and sought more than 1.2 trillion won in property division—the largest publicly known claim in a Korean divorce at the time.
The Supreme Court ultimately upheld a property settlement of roughly 14.1 billion won in 2020, a tiny fraction of the amount sought. Legal observers widely interpreted the outcome as reflecting the court's view that Lee's Samsung shareholdings were not subject to division.
Lee Jae-yong and Lim Se-ryung: A quiet ending
Not every chaebol romance ended in years of courtroom drama.
Samsung Electronics Chairman Lee Jae-yong and Daesang Vice Chairwoman Lim Se-ryung divorced in 2009 after 11 years of marriage.
The case was settled through mediation within days after proceedings began, and financial terms were never disclosed.
Both went on to become prominent business leaders in their own right, with Lee leading Samsung Electronics and Lim emerging as one of Korea's most influential female executives.
A retail heir and a television star
One of Korea's most talked-about celebrity-business marriages brought together Shinsegae Group Chairman Chung Yong-jin and actress Ko Hyun-jung.
The marriage, which attracted enormous public attention, ended in 2003 through mediation only hours after divorce proceedings began.
Reports at the time said Chung agreed to pay 1.5 billion won in alimony while retaining custody of the couple's children. The details of any property division, however, were never made public.
The gaming founder who paid in shares
One of the few founders to divide company ownership rather than cash was NCSoft founder Kim Taek-jin.
When his marriage ended in 2004, Kim transferred a 1.76 percent stake in the online game developer to his former spouse.
The shares were valued at roughly 30 billion won at the time, making it one of Korea's earliest high-profile examples of equity-based divorce settlements involving a technology entrepreneur.
The next blockbuster case
Legal and business circles are already watching what could become Korea's next landmark corporate divorce.
Smilegate Chief Visionary Officer Kwon Hyuk-bin, whose fortune is estimated at around 8 trillion won, is scheduled to receive a first-instance ruling on Sept. 9 in a divorce case filed in 2022.
Local media have reported that his wife is seeking roughly half of his Smilegate shareholding.
Following the precedent set in the Chey-Roh litigation, the case is expected to test whether Korean courts are increasingly willing to treat founder-controlled equity in privately held technology companies as marital property.
What links these stories is not simply celebrity or wealth.
Each has raised difficult questions about how courts value contributions made outside the boardroom, whether family-controlled shareholdings should be divided after decades of marriage, and how personal relationships can reshape the ownership of some of Korea's largest corporations.
For a country where chaebol families have long inspired television romances, reality has proved every bit as dramatic—only the scripts are written in court judgments, measured in billions of won, and capable of altering the future of corporate empires.
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