ARX v ARY

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Belinda Ang Saw Ean J
• Judgment Date: 27 February 2015
• Neutral Citation: [2015] SGHC 55
• Plaintiff Counsel: Mr Wendell Wong and Ms Choo Tse Yun (Drew & Napier LLP)
• Docket Number: Divorce Transferred No. 503 of 2010
• Date: 27 February 2015
• Hearing Date: 15 January 2014,04 November 2014,05 December 2014,09 October 2013,07 August 2013,29 September 2014,27 February 2014,13 February 2015
• Subject Matter: Division,Maintenance of child,Family law,Wife,Maintenance,Matrimonial assets,Child
• Published date: 16 March 2016
• Citation: [2015] SGHC 55
• Defendant Counsel: Ms Kasturibai Manickam, Mr Premchand Soman and Mr Paul (East Asia Law Corporation)
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Year: 2015

Belinda Ang Saw Ean J: Introduction

The plaintiff husband (“the plaintiff”) and the defendant wife (“the defendant”) were married on 29 October 1994. The plaintiff is aged 43 and the defendant is 52 years old. They parties have two children aged 15 and 10 years.

The parties separated by mutual agreement at the end of June 2009. The plaintiff commenced divorce proceedings on 2 February 2010 and Interim Judgment was granted on 26 October 2010. As the parties had agreed on the issue of custody, care and control and access, the unresolved issues were the division of the matrimonial assets and maintenance for the defendant and the children of the marriage. After hearing the parties, I made the following orders on 4 November 2014 and 5 December 2014:

Division of Matrimonial Assets

1. The operative date to determine the pool of matrimonial assets is 30 June 2012. The value of the pool of matrimonial assets is $1,476,000.00. 2. The pool of matrimonial assets is to be divided in the proportion of 50% to the plaintiff and 50% to the defendant in the following manner: (a) The defendant shall be the sole owner of the parties’ Glasgow flat, the value of which was fixed at $232,464.10; for this purpose: (i) the plaintiff shall execute and return all documents necessary to effect the transfer within ten (10) working days of being served with the documents. (ii) in the event the plaintiff defaults in executing and returning all the documents, the Registrar of the Family Justice Courts under Section 31 of the Family Justice Act No 27/2014 is authorised to execute, sign and indorse all necessary documents relating to matters contained in this order on behalf of the plaintiff; (b) The defendant shall retain the matrimonial assets held in her sole name, the value of which was determined to be $17,963.56; (c) The plaintiff shall retain the immovable properties in Turkey including the Turunc property, the total value of which was fixed at $253,287.00; (d) The plaintiff shall retain the car bearing registration number SGQ269U, the value of which was fixed at $42,000.00; (e) The plaintiff shall retain the other matrimonial assets held in his sole name save for the sum of $487,572.34 to be paid to the defendant as hereinafter provided; (f) The plaintiff shall transfer $487,572.34 to the defendant in the following manner: (i) The plaintiff shall transfer $225,000 to the defendant by 12 December 2014; (ii) The plaintiff shall transfer $150,000 to the defendant by 30 June 2015 and (iii) The plaintiff shall transfer $112,572.34 to the defendant by 30 September 2015.

Maintenance

3. The plaintiff shall bear the school-related expenses of A and B. 4. The plaintiff shall provide medical insurance for A and B. 5. The plaintiff shall pay $250 per month for A’s pocket money, and $150 per month for B’s pocket money. The plaintiff shall make the payments towards pocket monies directly to A and B. 6. The plaintiff shall provide accommodation for the defendant and the children, the rent of which amounts to $4,700/- per month at present. 7. The plaintiff shall pay monthly maintenance of $3,000 to the defendant for the defendant’s personal expenses, as well as the household expenses of the defendant, A and B.

Custody, Care and Control and Access

8. The Orders on custody, care and control and access for A and B shall be in accordance with the Order of Court dated 17 and 25 October 2012 by the District Judge Shobha Gopalakrishnan Nair (which varied the Order of Court dated 06 September 2011 by the District Judge Michelle Woodworth Cordeiro).

Others

9. Each part shall bear his/her legal costs. 10. Liberty to apply.

The defendant has appealed against part of the maintenance order whereas the plaintiff has cross-appealed against part of the decision relating to the division of the matrimonial assets and maintenance.

I now set out my grounds of decision.

The parties and their background

The plaintiff is of Turkish origin. He is a sales manager with a financial software, data and media company which has its headquarters in New York City. The plaintiff now lives and works in Hong Kong.

The defendant is Scottish and was living in London, England. She met the plaintiff in Turkey in 1993 while she was on holiday there. The plaintiff was at that time 21 years old and was living with his parents. He was working at his uncle’s jewellery shop after having completed his national service and high school diploma.

On the other hand, the defendant had completed her tertiary education, was a qualified Chartered Accountant, and by 1993 held the position of Associate Director of Capital Markets in a British bank having worked in the financial and banking industry for several years.

With the assistance of the defendant, the plaintiff joined her in London the next year. The parties married shortly thereafter.

In the early years of the marriage, the defendant was the sole bread winner as the plaintiff was a full-time student. Apart from paying for the plaintiff’s passage to London, she financed his English language course and tertiary education as well as living expenses. The plaintiff completed his degree in 1998 and joined his current employers as an intern in 1999.

In that same year, the parties had their first child, A, who was born on 13 May 1999. The defendant continued to be employed full time in the financial markets. She held a senior position as Head of European Equities Account Management in a European Bank until April 2003 when she was made redundant following a corporate reorganisation that affected her department. By that time, she was already pregnant with the second child, B, who was born on 27 December 2003.

Shortly after the defendant was made redundant, the plaintiff was promoted and was given an international posting to Hong Kong. The parties decided that the family would relocate to Hong Kong and that the defendant would give up full-time work to be a homemaker.

Shortly after arriving in Hong Kong, the plaintiff was transferred to Japan in 2004 where the family remained until November/December 2006 when the plaintiff was sent to Singapore for work.

Whilst living in Singapore, the defendant discovered that the plaintiff was having an affair. The plaintiff admitted to the affair, and the marriage deteriorated thereafter. By mutual agreement, the parties separated in June 2009. As stated in [2] above, their divorce followed shortly after.

After the plaintiff left the matrimonial home, the defendant remained behind in the rented matrimonial home to take care of the children. A myriad of factors including age and absence from the job market made it difficult for the defendant to find a job in the investment banking industry. However, the defendant was able to find work as a part-time estate agent. At the time of the hearing of the ancillary proceedings, she found employment as a part-time bookkeeper that paid her $2,500 per month. Both the children are currently students and boarders of an international school in Johor Bahru, Malaysia.

The matrimonial assets

During the course of the marriage, the parties retained their native connections and both visited and purchased property in Scotland and Turkey (see list of matrimonial assets at [35] below). The parties were primarily able to agree on the matrimonial assets that would be liable for division except for the following matters: Whether the cash accumulated by the plaintiff from salaries and bonuses after the Interim Judgment would constitute a matrimonial asset and be liable for division (“MA Pool Issue 1”); and Whether a property in Turkey registered under the plaintiff’s mother’s name (“the Turunc property”) was a matrimonial asset (“MA Pool Issue 2”).

I now turn to address the abovementioned issues.

MA Pool Issue 1: The operative date for determining the pool of matrimonial assets

The plaintiff had earned salaries and bonuses in the course of his employment and the defendant contended that the cash accumulated from his salaries and bonuses should be subject to division as a matrimonial asset within the meaning of s 112(10)(b) of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed) (“the Act”) being “any … asset of any nature acquired during the marriage by one party or both parties to the marriage”.

This leads me to the nub of the issue which concerns the appropriate operative date for determining the pool of matrimonial assets in this case (“Operative Date”). In the context of the current proceedings, the parties’ arguments threw up four possible operative dates: June 2009 (the date the parties separated); 2 February 2010 (the date the plaintiff filed for divorce); 26 October 2010 (the date of the Interim Judgment); or 30 June 2012 (a point in time after the Interim Judgment when ancillary proceedings first started).

Counsel for the plaintiff argued that the appropriate Operative Date should be June 2009 as it was the time when the parties separated. As such, it would be the date when the parties intended to cease participating in the joint accumulation of matrimonial assets.¹ It was further submitted that if this court was not with the plaintiff on the date of separation, a suitable alternative would be the date of the Interim Judgment. It was argued that selecting an Operative Date at the other end of the spectrum (i.e. 30 June 2012) would set an “unhealthy precedent” in matrimonial proceedings.²

In contrast, counsel for the defendant selected 30 June 2012 as the Operative Date. This date happened to coincide with the start of the ancillary proceedings. The defendant relied on Yeo Gim Tiong Michael v Tianzon Lolita [1996] 1 SLR(R) 633 (“Tianzon”) in support of her proposition that the court has a discretion to adopt a date after the Interim...