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Samsung heiress and president of the Shilla Hotel

A court granted the divorce of Lee Bu-jin, 46, president of the Shilla Hotel and eldest daughter of Samsung Group chairman Lee Kun-hee, and Im Woo-jae, 48, permanent consultant at Samsung Electro-Mechanics Co., ending their 17-year marriage.

On Jan. 14, Hon. Ju Jin-oh ruled partially in favor of Lee in a divorce lawsuit that she had brought against Im, her husband. Ju is a judge of family law at the Seongnam Branch Court, under the Suwon District Court.

Neither Lee nor Im were present at the hearing.

The court awarded Lee both legal and physical custody over her son, who is in the second grade of elementary school. At the same time, it recognized Im’s visitation rights for the child and gave Im permission to see him once a month (from 2 pm on Saturday to 5 pm on Sunday).

Im had repeatedly expressed his opposition to the divorce, and he had also been sharply opposed to Lee on the issue of physical and legal custody. But with the court handing both kinds of custody to Lee, Im effectively lost the suit.

“The division of assets was not brought up in this lawsuit, and since the majority of assets were acquired before marriage, this is not a debatable point,” Lee’s lawyer said after the trial.

“The court’s ruling is unacceptable. As soon as we receive the verdict, we will appeal,” Im’s lawyer said. “There’s little precedent for providing both physical and legal custody rights to the same parent in a divorce suit.”

In regard to the division of property, the lawyers for both sides noted that the issue did not come up in the lawsuit and was not at issue.

While Im’s plans to appeal the decision mean that the divorce is not finalized, the ruling still spells the end to a modern Cinderella tale, in which an ordinary office worker married the daughter of a chaebol chairman.

Im and Lee, who married in Aug. 1999, made each other’s acquaintance while doing volunteer work as new employees. Lee reportedly pushed ahead with the marriage, stubbornly defying her father, Lee Kun-hee, and her mother, who were opposed to the idea.

The marriage had fallen apart, however, by Oct. 2014, when Lee asked the court to arbitrate a divorce and assign custody of their son. By that time, Lee and Im were already separated, and the reason Lee gave for wanting a divorce was irreconcilable differences in their personal characters.

After the couple failed to resolve their differences through counseling and arbitration, Lee initiated the lawsuit that ultimately resulted in this ruling.

Divorce is no stranger to the Lee family. In 2009, Lee Jae-yong, 48, the oldest son of Lee Kun-hee and vice chairman of Samsung Electronics, divorced Lim Se-ryeong, 39, eldest daughter of Daesang Group honorary chairman Lim Chang-wook and an executive at the Daesang Group. The two had gotten married in 1998.

Chung Yong-jin, 48, vice chairman of the Shinsegae Group and son of Lee Myung-hee (younger sister of Lee Kun-hee and chairwoman of the Shinsegae Group), married actress Go Hyun-jung, 45, in 1995, but the two divorced after eight years. In May 2011, Chung remarried, this time to flutist Han Ji-hee, 36.

By Hong Yong-duk, South Gyeonggi correspondent, and Lee Jeong-hun, staff reporter

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