South Korean court has ordered video game magnate Kwon Hyuk-bin to pay his ex-wife $1.87 billion in assets, marking the largest divorce settlement in the country’s history.
Kwon is the founder of Smilegate, the company behind massive global hits like the first-person shooter CrossFire and the role-playing game Lost Ark. He married Lee Hwa-jin in 2001, just a year before he launched the business. On Wednesday, the court ruled that a 35% stake in the firm, valued at roughly 2.5 trillion won, must be transferred to her. He was also ordered to pay an additional 65 billion won in cash.
The legal battle centered on the origins of the company’s success. Lee’s legal team argued that she helped finance the business at its founding and spent over two decades raising their children and managing their household.
Kwon pushed back hard against this narrative. He argued that Lee “neither invested nor worked for the company,” and earlier this year, Smilegate released a statement insisting that all of the firm’s initial capital came directly from him.
When reached for comment, a Smilegate spokesperson declined to discuss the “major shareholder’s personal matters,” adding only that the company would “continue to faithfully perform our duties as usual.”
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This ruling shatters the previous South Korean record of 944 billion won, which was awarded to the ex-wife of SK Group chairman Chey Tae-won earlier this year. However, that earlier decision was later sent back for review by the Supreme Court over a miscalculation of assets, showing how fiercely these high-stakes splits are contested at the highest levels of the legal system.
Both parties still have the right to appeal the current ruling, meaning the final chapter of this division may not be written yet. But for now, a decades-long marriage has ended with a price tag that rewrites the legal record books. It is a stark reminder that in the world of corporate dynasties, the cost of walking away can be higher than almost anyone imagined.
Promise Idoko is Junior Reporter working with moderncrux He covers global politics and international affairs. Based in Nigeria,
