Tag: divorce

The daughter of former ROK President Roh Tae-woo just received a huge divorce settlement from her ex-husband:

The court approved the divorce of SK Chairman Chey Tae-won and his wife, Roh Soh-yeong, director of Art Center Nabi. 

If neither side appeals, the high-powered couple will end their 34 years of marriage marked by ups and downs years after Chey’s public acknowledgment that he has been in extramarital relationship with a woman and that they had a child out of wedlock.

Seoul Family Court approved their divorce on Tuesday, ordering Chey to pay alimony of 100 million won ($75,700) and a property settlement of 66.5 billion won ($50.4 million) to Roh. 

Chey, the eldest son of the late former SK Chairman Chey Jong-hyun, tied the knot with Roh, the daughter of Korean former President Roh Tae-woo, in 1998 at the Blue House. It is known that both had met while studying in the United States. They have two daughters and one son together.

In 2015, Chey revealed that he had fathered a child out of wedlock and expressed his intention to split up with Roh through a three-page letter sent to Segye Ilbo, a local newspaper. 

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Not only has Heather Cho been vilified, sent to jail, and lost her job because of the “nut rage” incident now she is getting divorced and may lose custody of her kids:

Cho Hyun-ah, former executive of Korean Air, who made global headlines with the infamous nut rage scandal, faces a divorce lawsuit from her husband of eight years.

According to legal sources on Monday, Cho’s husband filed a divorce suit to Seoul Family Court on April 2, and requested custody of their children.

Cho hasn’t yet appointed an attorney and the trial date hasn’t been set, Yonhap reported.

Cho and her husband, the head of a famous cosmetic surgery practice in Gangnam, married in 2010 and had twins.  [UPI]

You can read more at the link.

It looks like everything turned out alright for Lee Boo-jin’s divorce.  Her ex-husband was trying to get a billion dollars out of her and instead the court orders her to pay him $7.6 million.  She probably has that amount of money lying under her mattress:

The Seoul Family Court granted a divorce Thursday to Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin and Im Woo-jae, former adviser of Samsung Electro-Mechanics, ordering Lee to pay Im 8.6 billion won ($7.6 million) as part of the division of their assets.

The court gave Lee, the eldest daughter of bedridden Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, custody of the couple’s 10 year-old son.

The Thursday ruling is a setback for Im, whose 15-year-old marriage with Lee unraveled in 2014 when Lee sued for divorce. He had asked for 1.2 trillion won in dividing their assets.

The couple was represented at the court’s ruling by their lawyers. Under the ruling, Im will have visitation rights with his son only once a month between 11 a.m. on a Saturday and 4 p.m. the following day.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link.

Unfortunately Nicholas Cage’s marriage to Korean-American Alice Kim has come to an end:

Hollywood actor Nicolas Cage and his Korean-American wife, Alice Kim, ended their 11-year marriage earlier this year, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The paper said the couple, who have a son, 10, had been separated since January.

Cage, 52, met Kim, 32, in February 2004 when she waited on his table at a Los Angeles restaurant. They were engaged two months later and married in July the same year. [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but 11 years is pretty long time for a Hollywood marriage.

For some reason I think Lee Boo-jin can afford better lawyers than her husband which means I doubt her ex-husband will ever see the trillion won he is trying to get out of her:

The former vice president of Samsung Electro-Mechanics, Im Woo-jae, has made the highest divorce settlement claim in Korean history, demanding 1.2 trillion won ($1.04 billion) from his ex-wife, Lee Boo-jin, the Samsung heiress and CEO of Hotel Shilla.

Im reportedly filed for divorce with the Seoul Family Court on June 29. In addition to his unprecedented demand, he asked for 10 million won in alimony and custody of their 9-year-old son.

Lee Boo-jin, the eldest daughter of the bedridden Samsung chairman, Lee Kun-hee, applied for a divorce settlement and parental rights with the Suwon District Court in October 2014. She filed for divorce in the summer of 2015 after two rounds of failed settlements with Im, who refused to accept her demands, claiming he wants to keep the family together.

The court granted parental and custodial rights to Lee in January, and Im was given the right to meet with his son once a month from 2 p.m. on a Saturday until 5 p.m. the next day.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read more at the link, but I like how Im Woo-jae after demanding a trillion won is also trying to get alimony to support their kids.  I guess a trillion won is not enough to live off of now days for the chaebol types.

Lee Boo-jin (L), the elder daughter of Samsung Group’s owner family, and Im Woo-jae are officially divorced after a local court on Jan. 14, 2016, accepted the claim filed by Lee, ending their marriage of 17 years. The two received much press about their marriage of an heir to a mega-conglomerate and an ordinary man she met when he was an employee at a Samsung-affiliated company. Im had climbed up the success ladder at Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., also a Samsung affiliate, after the marriage to executive vice president before stepping aside in 2015 to become a company adviser. He had contested the divorce. (Yonhap)

These file photos show Chey Tae-won (L), the head of South Korea’s third-largest conglomerate SK Group, and his wife Roh Soh-yeong, whom the business tycoon wants to divorce. Chey confessed in a letter released through a local daily on Dec. 29, 2015, that he has been living with another woman and had a daughter with her, now six years old. Chey and Roh had married in 1988, soon after Roh’s father, Roh Tae-woo, took office as president. SK Group-related shares fell on speculation that Chey’s control of the conglomerate may weaken as the couple sort out their financial settlement for the divorce. (Yonhap)

Here is another interesting ruling by South Korea’s Supreme Court that people who cheat on their spouse are not allowed to file for a no-fault divorce:

The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that the spouse directly responsible for ruining his or her marital relationship is ineligible to file for divorce, in accordance with no-fault regulations.

The highest court’s decision upheld the ruling of a lower court, which dismissed a divorce suit brought by a 68-year-old plaintiff against his 66-year-old wife.

The names of the two were not disclosed, however, according to court files, the plaintiff wed his wife in 1976 and the couple had three children together. The man then began an extra-marital affair in 1996 with another woman, with whom he had another child.

In 2000, the plaintiff moved in with his mistress, though still continued to pay living and education expenses to his original children.

He officially filed for divorce in 2011, after he was diagnosed with kidney disease and his oldest children refused to donate.

Among the 13-member panel of judges, six argued that divorce suits should be accepted in cases in which the marital relationship was undeniably ruined, while the remaining seven said it was still too premature to begin accepting divorce suits by unfaithful spouses given the parameters of current laws.

However, an unfaithful spouse, the top court added, still has the option to divorce by consent.  [Joong Ang Ilbo]

You can read the rest at the link.

According to the statistics an increasing number of Koreans are divorcing or choosing to remain single:

One in four married men are likely to get divorced. The more the highly-educated people are, the less they will likely they are to divorce.

Among married men who left school before finishing their education the proportion is as high as 48 percent. Among men with a high-school diploma the chances drop to 30 percent, and among university graduates to 20 percent.

According to a report by Statistics Korea’s analysis of census and annual marriage data from 1990 to 2010, the chance of divorce among men rose from 10.4 percent in 1990 to 25.1 percent in 2010, up 2.5 times over the last 20 years.

Kim Soo-young at Statistics Korea said, “Although individual circumstances and social values have a big impact, divorce got more common due to the prolonged slump after the 1997 Asian financial crisis.”

The chances of divorce among married women also rose from 9.9 percent to 24.7 percent over the same period.

The number of remarriages has declined. In 1990, more than seven out of 10 couples who divorced chose to remarry, but that dropped to half by 2010.

The number of men and women who choose to stay single also rose. In 1990, only one in 11 men chose to stay single, but that rose to one in every five by 2010. The ratio for women rose from 5.1 percent to 15.1 percent over the same period.  [Chosun Ilbo]

You can read the rest a the link, but it is believed that more and more Koreans are seeing little benefits in marriage and want to remain single because of the convenience.