The Supreme Court is anticipated to issue its decision this week regarding former first lady Kim Keon-hee’s alleged stock price manipulation related to Deutsch Motors, the receipt of funds from the Unification Church, and the matter of obtaining free public opinion surveys from Myung Tae-kyun. This will be the first Supreme Court ruling involving Kim, roughly 11 months after the special counsel team examining former first lady Kim Keon-hee, led by Special Prosecutor Min Joong-ki, charged her in August 2025.
Alongside the Supreme Court’s decision regarding Kim this week, the initial judgment on Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s suspected proxy payment for public opinion polls and the final appellate ruling on the property division case between SK Group CEO Chey Tae-won and Roh Soh-yeong, director of the Art Center Nabi, are also set to take place.
◇Kim’s Decision Postponed Due to ‘Yoon’s Conviction’… Could the Verdict Be Altered?
The Second Division of the Supreme Court (led by Chief Justice Park Young-jae) will announce its decision regarding former first lady Kim Keon-hee’s suspected breaches of the Capital Markets Act and additional charges at 2 p.m. on June 24. The verdict will be streamed live through the Supreme Court’s own systems, providing real-time coverage to media outlets.
Kim is facing three charges in total. Initially, she is alleged to have received a Graff diamond necklace valued at around 62 million Korean won and two Chanel bags totaling 20 million Korean won from Yun Young-ho, the former global head of the Unification Church, via Jeon Seong-bae, a shaman also referred to as Geonjin, in return for seeking the church’s backing (a form of brokerage bribery under the Act on the Aggravated Punishment of Specific Crimes).
Kim is also accused of conspiring with a group that manipulated the stock prices of Deutsch Motors to secure unjust profits amounting to roughly 810 million South Korean won (in violation of the Capital Markets Act). Additionally, she is alleged to have received free public opinion survey results valued at approximately 270 million South Korean won from political intermediary Myung Tae-kyun, along with former President Yoon Suk-yeol (in violation of the Political Funds Act). These charges were the reasons behind the formation of the special counsel team tasked with investigating former first lady Kim Keon-hee.
The initial trial, held in January 2026, recognized only a portion of the Unification Church bribery allegations as valid and sentenced Kim to one year and eight months in prison. The subsequent trial, which took place in April 2026, determined her guilty on all charges except for the receipt of free public opinion surveys, resulting in a four-year prison term and a fine of 50 million South Korean won. The accusation related to receiving free public opinion surveys from Mr. Myung was dismissed in both the first and second trials. It was widely anticipated that the Supreme Court would confirm these decisions.
However, a notable development arose when the Seoul Central District Court’s Criminal Division 33 (Judge Lee Jin-gwan) sentenced former President Yoon Suk-yeol to two years in prison on July 13, 2026, after determining he was guilty of receiving free public opinion surveys from Myung Tae-kyun. This led to an inconsistency in the court’s decision between former President Yoon and Kim, who were involved in the same case. While former President Yoon was found guilty in the initial trial for receiving the free public opinion surveys, Kim was cleared in both the first and second trials. As a result, the special counsel team examining former First Lady Kim Keon-hee submitted a request to the Supreme Court to delay the ruling, asking for a reconsideration of the verdict in former President Yoon’s case. The Supreme Court approved this request, rescheduling the ruling to June 24.
◇Loss of Position if the Fine Exceeds 1 Million South Korean Won
The Criminal Division 22 of the Seoul Central District Court, presided by Judge Jo Hyung-woo, will conduct the first-instance trial for Seoul Mayor Oh Se-hoon’s alleged breach of the Political Funds Act at 2 p.m. on June 22. Mayor Oh was sent to trial in December 2025 for allegedly obtaining public opinion survey results ten times from Myung Tae-kyun before the April 7, 2021, Seoul mayoral by-election and having Kim Han-jeong cover the 33 million Korean won expense for him.
The special counsel team probing former first lady Kim Keon-hee sought a one-year and six-month prison term along with the seizure of 33 million South Korean won from Mayor Oh during the closing court session on June 17, 2026. Should the court impose a fine exceeding 1 million South Korean won for breaching the Political Funds Act, Mayor Oh would be stripped of his mayoral position.
Before the decision, the special prosecutor submitted the initial judgment regarding the case of former President Yoon’s receipt of public opinion surveys to the court that is handling Mayor Oh’s trial. The first-instance court in former President Yoon’s case determined that Yoon’s team had commissioned the surveys from Mr. Myung, noting that Myung changed the sampling technique to benefit Yoon and altered some of the survey data. Along with submitting the verdict related to former President Yoon to the first-instance court handling Mayor Oh’s case, the special prosecutor reportedly provided an opinion stating, “Mayor Oh also instructed Mr. Myung, ‘We need surveys that show us winning against the opposing candidate,’ and Myung manipulated the results,” asserting that Mayor Oh should be regarded as the survey commissioner.
◇A Property Division Lawsuit Spanning a Century… Outcome of a Nine-Year Legal Dispute
The Family Division 1 of the Seoul High Court (Chief Judge Lee Sang-joo) will conduct the final appeal hearing for the property division case between SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won and Roh Soh-yeong, head of the Art Center Nabi, at 2 p.m. on June 24. The decision will be announced simultaneously with the Supreme Court’s final appeal judgment concerning former first lady Kim Keon-hee.
In October 2025, the Supreme Court concluded the divorce proceedings between Chairman Chey and Director Roh, approving a compensation of 2 billion South Korean won, and referred the case back to the Seoul High Court for a fresh decision regarding the division of assets.
The trial started in February 2018 when Chairman Chey initiated the legal action. In December 2022, the initial court acknowledged SK Inc. shares, which make up more than half of Chairman Chey’s assets, as ‘separate property’ (assets acquired prior to marriage), and ordered Chairman Chey to pay 66.5 billion South Korean won to Director Roh as part of the property settlement. However, in May 2024, the appellate court raised Director Roh’s share to 1.3808 trillion South Korean won, arguing that the 30 billion South Korean won in secret funds from her father, former President Roh Tae-woo, contributed to the growth of the SK Group. The court considered the total shared property to be around 4 trillion South Korean won and determined Director Roh’s portion to be 35%.
However, the Supreme Court reversed this ruling. It noted, “The secret funds of former President Roh were unlawful, and even if they were directed towards SK, they cannot be considered as a valid contribution to asset development,” and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court.
The retrial is anticipated to reduce Director Roh’s stake below the 35% threshold established by the appellate court, as per the Supreme Court’s ruling. The central matter involves the valuation of SK Inc. shares, which were essentially deemed as the couple’s shared asset during the proceedings. With SK Hynix’s stock price rising sharply this year, greatly boosting the value of SK Inc., the sum that Chairman Chey needs to pay Director Roh may differ by hundreds of billions of South Korean won depending on the chosen valuation date.
The position of Chairman Chey claims that because the Supreme Court completed the divorce and only sent back the property division, the valuation date should be April 16, 2024, which marks the end of the appellate trial arguments. On the other hand, Director Roh’s team reportedly maintains that the valuation date should be June 26, 2026, the conclusion date of the re-trial arguments. As of April 16, 2024, SK Inc.’s stock was trading at 160,000 Korean won per share, with Chairman Chey’s shares valued at 2.0761 trillion Korean won. By June 26, 2026, the closing price of SK Inc. surpassed 800,000 Korean won per share.
This decision does not mark the conclusion of the legal proceedings. Either party has the option to submit a final appeal to the Supreme Court should they contest the ruling.
jasdooit 
Leave a comment