"No Plan B and Reckless...
Only Option Is to Submit, Self-Inflicted"
As the second trial result of the divorce lawsuit between Choi Tae-won, chairman of SK Group, and Noh So-young, director of Art Center Nabi?who attracted public attention and earned the nickname "Divorce of the Century"?was announced, a former judge turned lawyer sharply criticized it as a "lawsuit that should never have been filed in the first place."
From the left, Chey Tae-won, Chairman of SK Group, and Noh So-young, Director of Art Center Nabi. [Image source=Yonhap News]
On the 30th, Lee Hyun-gon (29th Judicial Research and Training Institute), a former family court judge and lawyer at Saeol Law Firm, posted an article titled "The Reason Chairman Choi Tae-won Failed" on his Facebook. The lawyer pointed out, "They recklessly pushed forward with a lawsuit that should never have been filed, and when the lawsuit did not go as planned, they should have considered a Plan B, but there was nothing like that."
He also used Paris, the prince of Troy from Greek and Roman mythology whose actions sparked the Trojan War, as a metaphor. The lawyer said, "A company owner’s divorce is not a personal matter," adding, "Prince Paris caused the Trojan War because of a woman. That shows how responsible his position was." He continued, "However, Chairman Choi himself initiated the divorce lawsuit, igniting the spark for property division. Although he held his ground in the first trial, in the appeal trial he was ordered to pay a property division amounting to a staggering 1.3 trillion won. If he had anticipated that stocks would be subject to property division, he should have proposed stock division as a Plan B, but he did not."
The lawyer explained, "Since there is no way to have over 1 trillion won in cash, they will have no choice but to sell stocks or pay in stocks to raise cash," adding, "This means they will have to pay additional capital gains tax, and the expected extra cost will be in the hundreds of billions of won." He also said, "They will have to pay 5% annual interest, and the one-year interest on 1.3 trillion won is 65 billion won," adding, "If they had at least preliminarily proposed stock division, the court would have accepted it, and there would have been no interest costs."
He diagnosed, "When all costs are combined, the actual expenditure will be about 2 trillion won, so it should be considered a total failure," adding, "There is no way other than to completely surrender." He further said, "An owner is like a king in the company, but if there is no one to advise and check him, such things happen," and criticized, "It is unfortunate to see, but it is self-inflicted."
Previously, Chairman Choi, eldest son of the late Choi Jong-hyun, former SK chairman, and Director Noh, daughter of the late former President Roh Tae-woo, met while studying at the University of Chicago in the United States and formed a relationship that attracted public attention as the "Marriage of the Century." However, the public was greatly shocked when Chairman Choi confessed to having an extramarital child while still married to Director Noh. Later, in July 2017, Chairman Choi filed for divorce citing personality differences.
This led to a divorce lawsuit, and in the first trial, Chairman Choi was ordered to pay Director Noh 100 million won in alimony and 66.5 billion won in property division. However, both Chairman Choi and Director Noh appealed the first trial. The second trial overturned the first, ruling that Director Noh contributed to the increase in SK Group’s value and management activities, and that all of Chairman Choi’s assets were subject to division, ordering payment of 1.38 trillion won in property division and 2 billion won in alimony. Because of this, their divorce lawsuit earned the nickname "Divorce of the Century."
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