After more than nine years of litigation, the divorce and property division battle between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Art Center Nabi Director Roh Soh-yeong appears to be nearing its end.

The deadline for either side to appeal the high court’s retrial ruling on the property division is midnight on Aug. 14. If neither side appeals by then, the decision ordering Chey to pay Roh 944 billion won ($670 million) will become final, bringing their long-running legal saga to a close.

If either party appeals, the case will return to the Supreme Court, prolonging a dispute that began when Chey filed for divorce mediation in 2017.

According to court filings and rulings, their actual separation began in 2005, when they started living in separate quarters at their home in Seoul. Chey has attributed the breakdown of their marriage in part to the deaths of his mother in 1997 and his father, former SK Group Chairman Chey Jong-hyon, the following year. He claims Roh failed to provide him with sufficient emotional support during that period.

In 2003, Chey was arrested over an accounting fraud scandal, and he claimed that he again failed to receive adequate emotional support from Roh during that period. Roh, however, argued in court that she had held the family together and cared for their children.

From 2011, the relationship between the two appears to have turned increasingly hostile. Chey claims that Roh asked a senior presidential aide that year to have prosecutors investigate him over futures trading. Roh denied making such a request, arguing instead that she continued to support Chey, including while he was imprisoned in 2013 on embezzlement charges.

The conflict reached a peak in 2015. While Chey was widely expected to receive a special presidential pardon, Roh sent a letter to then-President Park Geun-hye opposing his release. Chey was pardoned and released in August that year.

In December 2015, Chey made the breakdown of their marriage public, saying he had a child with another woman outside the marriage and intended to seek a divorce.

In 2017, Chey filed for divorce mediation, but the process failed and formal court proceedings began in 2018. In 2019, Roh filed her own divorce and property division suit against Chey. Chey’s divorce claim was dismissed after the court found him responsible for the breakdown of the marriage, and the case proceeded on Roh’s claim.

In 2022, a district court ordered Chey to pay Roh 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in property division. Both sides appealed. In 2024, the Seoul High Court raised the property division award to 1.38 trillion won and ordered Chey to pay 2 billion won in alimony, prompting him to appeal to the Supreme Court.

In 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the 2 billion won alimony award, finalizing the divorce, but sent the property division portion of the case back to the high court for a retrial.

On July 24 the high court ordered Chey to pay Roh 944 billion won. The court also ruled that Chey’s SK shares should remain part of the marital property subject to division. Roh’s share was set at one-third, while Chey was assigned two-thirds. However, rather than ordering the transfer of SK shares themselves, the court required Chey to make up Roh’s portion in cash.

The ruling represented a substantial reduction from the Seoul High Court’s previous 2024 decision, which had ordered Chey to pay 1.38 trillion won. In October 2025, the Supreme Court overturned the earlier property division ruling and sent the case back to the High Court for reconsideration. The Supreme Court said the lower court had improperly taken into account allegations that a 300 billion won slush fund connected to Roh’s late father, former President Roh Tae-woo, had contributed to the growth of SK.

In the remanded trial, the High Court excluded the alleged slush fund from its calculation. Nevertheless, it concluded that Roh’s contribution to SK through household management, family support and maintenance of the marriage justified recognizing her share of the SK-related marital assets.

The court valued the relevant shares based on April 16, 2024 — the date when arguments in the previous appeal were completed. It also ordered annual delay interest of five percent from the day after the judgment becomes final until full payment.

The central question now is whether either side will file a further appeal. Chey’s legal team said immediately after the July ruling that it would review the written judgment before deciding whether to appeal. Roh’s side also retains the legal right to challenge the decision. If neither party files a further appeal or both submit waivers, the 944 billion won decision becomes final.