[Aju News DB]
The billionaire daughter of Samsun Group's bedridden patriarch Lee Kun-hee resumed a tedious legal battle Thursday to end her marital life with her bodyguard-turned husband.
The first hearing at a Seoul family court came two weeks after an appeals court ordered a new trial at a different place, citing jurisdiction of the court and nullifying a lower court decision in Suwon south of Seoul. Media access was denied.
Hotel Shilla CEO Lee Boo-jin filed a divorce suit in October 2014 against her 47-year-old husband, Lim Woo-jae. They married in August 1999 in the male version of "Cinderella", but their fairy-tale romance got into trouble for unknown reasons, triggering plenty of rumors and speculation.
On January 14, the Suwon court ruled in favor of Lee Boo-jin, allowing her to keep bringing up her son after being divorced. But Lim appealed, calling for a new retrial in Seoul where the couple had lived together until they were separated.
The husband has also filed a separate suit in Seoul, requesting a small amount of alimony and the division of assets worth 1.2 trillion won (1.05 billion US dollars).
Lim was known to have met his wife while he served as her bodyguard, but he once said in a newspaper interview that he had attempted suicide due to stress and pressure from the tycoon's family.
Lee Boo-jin, 45, was listed by US business magazine Forbes as one of the world's 100 most powerful women. Hotel Shilla operates South Korea's second-largest duty-free chain after Lotte with her wealth linked to other group units through a complex web of cross-shareholding.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
