CLC v CLB
| Jurisdiction | Singapore |
| Judge | Sundaresh Menon CJ |
| Judgment Date | 03 March 2023 |
| Neutral Citation | [2023] SGCA 10 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Singapore) |
| Docket Number | Civil Appeal No 5 of 2022 |
| Hearing Date | 11 August 2022 |
| Citation | [2023] SGCA 10 |
| Year | 2023 |
| Plaintiff Counsel | Yap Teong Liang and Tan Hui Qing (TL Yap Law Chambers LLC) (instructed), Chen Yiyang (YY Lee & Associates LLC) |
| Defendant Counsel | Chiok Beng Piow and Tan Wei En (AM Legal LLC) (instructed), Chuah Hui Fen Christine (Tan, Oei & Oei LLC) |
| Subject Matter | Family Law,Matrimonial Assets,Gifts |
| Published date | 08 March 2023 |
The statutory regime for the division of matrimonial assets in s 112 of the Women’s Charter 1961 (2020 Rev Ed) (the “Women’s Charter”) excludes assets that have been acquired by gift or inheritance from the matrimonial pool. The rationale for this is twofold: first, it recognises that the donor’s intention may have been to benefit only the donee spouse and not the other spouse, given that the donor is usually related to the donee spouse; and secondly, it acknowledges the need to prevent windfalls accruing to the other party to the marriage, given that division is based generally on contributions made by the spouses during the marriage. Where, however, where the donee spouse manifests a clear and unambiguous intention to treat the asset so acquired as part of the family estate, a question arises as to whether the original rationale for excluding the asset from the matrimonial pool ought to still take precedence, or whether the courts should give effect to the intention of the donee spouse. A further question is how such recognition of the intention of the donee spouse fits with the statutory regime in s 112.
In the present case, the respondent Husband had received monetary gifts from his father and had also inherited substantial sums from the father’s estate. For convenience we refer to the monies received from these sources collectively as the “Gifted Monies”. On the Husband’s case, the Gifted Monies had flowed into several bank accounts and investment portfolios that were in his sole name (the “Disputed Assets”). The High Court Judge (the “Judge”) found that even if the original source of the Disputed Assets had been the Gifted Monies, they had been co-mingled with other income and were thus no longer separately identifiable as having been derived from gifts and inheritance. She therefore included the Disputed Assets in the matrimonial pool. On appeal, however, the Appellate Division of the High Court (the “Appellate Division”) found that the Gifted Monies had not lost their character as gifts. After considering the total value of the Gifted Monies and the total value of the Disputed Assets, the Appellate Division held that the Gifted Monies must have gone into the Disputed Assets.
On appeal to this court, the Wife emphasised that even if the Disputed Assets were traceable to the Gifted Monies, which she did not accept, the Husband had evinced a real and unambiguous intention to treat the Gifted Monies as part of the family estate. The Disputed Assets had thus lost their character as gifts. This appeal therefore raises the issues of (a) the interplay between s 112 of the Women’s Charter and property law principles; and (b) what is required to trace an asset, particularly money in a bank account, to an asset acquired by gift or inheritance.
Background facts The parties were married in September 2003. The interim judgment of divorce was granted in July 2019. The ancillary matters relating to the division of matrimonial assets were heard in January 2021 (the “AM Hearing”). Orders in respect of the ancillary matters were delivered on 23 March 2021 and full grounds of decision were issued on 24 June 2021 in
The main dispute in the appeal before the Appellate Division concerned the assets in six Australian bank accounts and investment portfolios which the Husband claimed were derived from gifts or inheritance from his late father, and should therefore be excluded from the matrimonial pool. To be more precise, the Disputed Assets are identified in tabular form in [8] below. The total value of these six accounts making up the Disputed Assets was S$3,801,862.53 as at the date of the AM Hearing.
On the Husband’s case, the sources of the Disputed Assets were: (a) money from his father’s Australian will (the “Australian Inheritance” and “Australian Will” respectively); (b) money from the winding up of a company, “[G] Inc” (the “[G] Money”); and (c) money from the sale of the shares of a company, “[H] Sdn Bhd” (the “[H] Money”). For completeness, we note that the Husband also received money from his father’s Singapore will (the “Singaporean Inheritance”), under which he inherited a share in a property in Cairnhill Road and money in a DBS Bank account. It was not argued, however, that these sums had contributed to the Disputed Assets. The monies from these four sources were broadly referred to by the Appellate Division as the “Inheritance Monies” and amounted to a total of S$5,024,886.35.
The Husband also argued that another Australian bank account in his sole name, an ANZ Account No. ending 55 (“ANZ-55”), which was valued at S$10,602.11, should be excluded from the matrimonial pool, on the basis that it was a pre-marriage asset and the money therein was derived from the Australian Inheritance.
The accounts making up the Disputed Assets were:
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The Husband deposed that after his father’s death on 6 March 2008, he inherited assets under various wills made by his father. Significantly, under the Australian Will, the Husband was beneficiary of 12.5% of the residuary estate in Australia, and trustee of his children’s entitlement to 12.5% of the same. Pursuant to the Australian Will, he received S$132,693.42, comprising both his and his children’s entitlements. These monies were mixed with his existing funds in ANZ-55. From that account, monies were spent when the family made trips to Australia, and the funds were also intermingled with funds in the Disputed Assets.
The Wife did not dispute that the Australian Inheritance was placed in several of the Husband’s trading and bank accounts in Australia, including ANZ-55, CBA-29, Schwab-12, CSA-63, and Shaw-15. She argued, however, that the monies which the Husband had transferred out of their joint bank accounts in Malaysia from September 2018 onwards must have been transferred into these accounts in Australia as well given, amongst other things, the large amounts totalling US$900,000 that were transferred out of the Malaysian accounts between December 2018 and April 2019.
Before turning to discuss the [G] and [H] Monies, it is relevant to note that the Husband had also argued for the following accounts or investments (the “Other Investments”) to be excluded from the matrimonial pool, on the basis that they were pre-marriage assets or derived from gifts or inheritance:
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The Husband deposed that his father had given him shares in [G] Inc before his marriage to the Wife. That was why the shareholding was listed as separate property in a pre-nuptial agreement that the parties had entered into on 15 September 2003. All proceeds from the liquidation of [G] Inc in 2006 were credited into a BNP Paribas Account No. ending 34 before being transferred to a BNP Paribas Account No. ending 48, and were subsequently distributed around October 2008 in accordance with his father’s Memorandum of Wishes. The Husband’s share of the distribution was S$519,411.93 (the “[G] Money”). This was “transferred to and mixed with the existing funds” in DBS-3. That account had been listed as separate property in the pre-nuptial agreement and was “excluded by agreement from being [a] matrimonial asset”. The monies were also used to partially fund the balance price of a property identified as Property 2 which the parties had purchased during their marriage and which was registered in the Wife’s name. The monies were additionally placed into the Disputed Assets as well as Orbit-18, the Orbit Trust Account, the [J] Placement Shares, DBS-42 and DBS-60.
Before the Judge, the Wife did not submit on the [G] Money as such, but dealt with it as part of the Singaporean Inheritance (
The Wife also argued that, according to...
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