South Korean court orders SK chairman Chey to pay US$644 million to ex-wife in divorce ruling

SEOUL: A South Korean court ordered an AI chip-manufacturing tycoon on Friday (Jul 24) to make a trimmed-down US$644 million divorce payment to his former wife.Chey Tae-won, 65, is the chairman of the SK Group, which owns world-leading memory chipmaker SK hynix - a pillar of South Korea's tech-led economy.Seoul High Court in 2024 had told him to pay 1.38 trillion won (US$940 million) to his ex-wife Roh Soh-yeong, daughter of a former South Korean president.The sum - equal to more than US$1 billion at the exchange rate at the time of the ruling - led local media to dub it the "divorce of the century". Chey appealed to the Supreme Court, which told the high court to reconsider its 2024 decision and led to the tycoon's reduced divorce bill of 944 billion won (US$644 million).The settlement is