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Samsung chairman’s eldest daughter’s divorce settlement fails

February 10, 2015

Lee Boo-jin, the eldest daughter of Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee, leaves an event at the Shilla Hotel in Seoul on Jan. 9, 2012 to mark the 70th birthday of her father. Boo-jin serves as the chief executive officer and president of the hotel company, one of Samsung’s affiliates. (Yonhap)

SEONGNAM, South Korea (Yonhap) — Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin, the eldest daughter in the Samsung Group owner family, and her husband will go through a divorce trial as they failed to reach an agreement in the court’s mediation process, court officials and their lawyers said Tuesday.

Lee and her 46-year-old husband, Im Woo-jae, who is the vice-president of Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., will undergo the trial at the Seongnam branch of Suwon District Court to determine who will have the parental and nurturing rights over their child after the divorce, they said.

Lee filed for divorce in October.

Mediation during divorce proceedings is a way of finding solutions to issues such as child custody and spousal support without a formal trial. When an agreement is not reached amicably, a divorce trial can take place.

“The divorce mediation was unsuccessful,” their lawyers told reporters after emerging from the second round of divorce mediation at the court. “But both sides are narrowing their differences over the right to meet their child during the divorce mediation period.”

The couple, however, appear to have failed to narrow gaps over parental and fostering rights, they said.

Lee married Im in August 1999 when he worked as a rank-and-file employee of Samsung C&T Corp. They have one son.

Lee is currently nurturing the boy, who is attending an elementary school.