A Seoul court ordered Smilegate founder Kwon Hyuk-bin to hand over more than 2 trillion won, roughly $1.5 billion, to his ex-wife, the largest divorce settlement in South Korean history.
The Seoul Family Court granted the divorce on Wednesday, September 9, 2026, and directed Kwon to transfer a 35-percent stake in Smilegate, valued at approximately 2.5 trillion won, along with 65 billion won in cash to his former wife, identified only by her surname, Lee. The ruling dwarfs every prior asset division in the country's legal history.
Kwon founded Smilegate in 2002, building it into one of South Korea's most successful gaming companies. Lee filed for divorce in November 2022, seeking half of Kwon's stake in Smilegate Holdings. She argued she had contributed to the company's founding, played a role in its early management, and supported the household, all factors she said entitled her to a major share of the fortune.
Kwon saw it differently. AFP reported that he was known to have argued Lee was neither a co-founder nor involved in the company's management, and he reportedly opposed the divorce altogether.
The court sided with Lee on the divorce itself, but split the blame evenly. A court spokesperson said the marriage had "broken down beyond repair after considering the circumstances behind the couple's prolonged conflict and the prospects for reconciliation." The court added that "both sides bore equal responsibility for the breakdown of the marriage."
Despite awarding Lee a massive share of Kwon's wealth, the Seoul Family Court rejected her separate claim for damages. The ruling drew a line: Lee was entitled to a division of marital assets, but the court found no basis for an additional payout on top of the settlement.
Local media reports have placed Kwon's total assets at as much as eight trillion won. The 35-percent stake plus the cash payment represent a substantial but not majority share of that estimated fortune. Whether Kwon will appeal remains an open question, the ruling landed just hours before the story broke, and no public response from him has been reported.
High-profile divorces involving enormous sums have become a recurring feature of public life, and not just in South Korea. In the United States, Lori Loughlin's recent divorce filing after nearly three decades of marriage drew national attention for the personal fallout that can follow public scandal.
Before Wednesday's ruling, the largest known divorce settlement in South Korea belonged to Roh Soh-yeong, the ex-wife of SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won. That case produced a 944 billion won award, enormous by any standard, but now roughly half the size of what Lee stands to receive.
The Chey-Roh case is still unresolved. In July, the Seoul High Court ruled that Roh was entitled to a cash payout worth about one-third of the marital assets, including Chey's shares in SK Group, the conglomerate that owns chip giant SK hynix. Chey appealed in August, and the case has been sent back to South Korea's Supreme Court. A separate ruling had ordered Chey to pay $666 million to Roh.
Two record-shattering divorce settlements working through the same country's courts at the same time says something about the concentration of wealth in South Korea's tech and industrial sectors, and about the legal system's willingness to divide it. In both cases, the ex-wives argued they had contributed to the fortunes their husbands built, and in both cases, courts agreed those contributions warranted payouts in the hundreds of millions or billions.
Disputes over who deserves what in a divorce are hardly unique to South Korean billionaires. Stateside, Kristin Cavallari and Jay Cutler have publicly clashed over the terms of their own split, with each side telling a different story about who walked away with what.
The court's order to transfer 35 percent of Smilegate to Lee raises practical questions that go well beyond the personal drama. Smilegate is not a publicly traded company in the conventional sense, it is a private gaming powerhouse, and handing over more than a third of its equity to a divorcing spouse could reshape its governance and strategic direction.
The company, originally known as Smilegate Holdings before a name change, has operated as one of South Korea's premier gaming firms since Kwon founded it more than two decades ago. How the stake transfer will be executed, and on what timeline, remains unclear from the ruling as reported.
The scale of these settlements also raises a broader question about how courts value privately held companies. The 2.5 trillion won figure attached to the 35-percent stake implies a total company valuation of roughly 7.1 trillion won, a number that may or may not reflect what the shares would fetch on an open market. No details about the court's valuation methodology have been reported.
Celebrity and high-profile divorces often reveal just how messy the intersection of personal life and business ownership can become. The case of 49ers owner Jed York, who filed for divorce months before a separate personal scandal, is a reminder that the people running major enterprises are not immune to the same domestic upheavals as everyone else.
Lee filed for divorce in November 2022. The ruling did not come until September 2026, a gap of nearly four years. For a case involving billions of dollars in assets, a privately held company, and disputed claims about who helped build what, that timeline is not surprising. But it underscores the complexity of unwinding a marriage when the marital estate includes a controlling interest in a major corporation.
The court's finding that both parties bore equal responsibility for the marriage's collapse is notable. It suggests the judges did not view one spouse as the wrongdoer and the other as the victim, yet the asset division still overwhelmingly favored Lee in dollar terms. The rejection of her damages claim may have been the court's way of balancing the ledger: she gets a share of the fortune, but not a penalty payment on top of it.
Marriage breakdowns among public figures continue to generate headlines worldwide. In Nashville, Jack White's third marriage ended when his wife filed a fault-based divorce, a reminder that no amount of fame or wealth insulates anyone from the fractures that end marriages.
Whether Kwon challenges the ruling in a higher court will determine whether the $1.5 billion figure stands or gets renegotiated. The Chey-Roh precedent suggests appeals in South Korean billionaire divorces can drag on for years, with the final number shifting at each level of review.
A billion-dollar divorce settlement is a private matter with public consequences. When the asset in question is a third of a major company, the court isn't just dividing a marriage, it's rearranging an industry.
