Sigrid Else Roger Marthe Wauters v Lieven Corneel Leo Raymond Van Den Brande

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Choo Han Teck J
• Judgment Date: 01 November 2011
• Neutral Citation: [2011] SGHC 237
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Divorce Suit No 3195 of 2009
• Year: 2011
• Published date: 04 November 2011
• Hearing Date: 28 September 2011,24 August 2011
• Plaintiff Counsel: Tan Anamah Nee Nagalingam (Ann Tan & Associates)
• Defendant Counsel: Loo Ming Nee Bernice and Magdalene Sim (Allen & Gledhill LLP)
• Subject Matter: Family Law
• Citation: [2011] SGHC 237

Choo Han Teck J:

The parties are Belgian nationals who married on 25 February 1992. The plaintiff (wife), a housewife, is aged 48 years old and the defendant (husband), a business management consultant, is 55 years old. The plaintiff said that she worked briefly as an interior designer from 2006 to 2010 but the defendant disputes this claim. It was not material to my decision. They have a daughter, aged 19 years, who is studying at the LaSalle School of Art; and a son, aged 17 years, studying in the United World College of South East Asia. The family has been living in Singapore since June 2000. They reside at a rented property at No 27 Tudor Close, Tudor Ten Singapore 297954. The plaintiff filed for divorce on 25 June 2009 and an interim judgment was granted on 11 June 2010. The parties appeared before me on 24 August 2011 for orders regarding the ancillary matters.

The division of matrimonial property concerned inter alia three assets. The first is the sale proceeds from an investment of US$300,000.00 made jointly by the parties in May 2007, deposited into one HSBC USD Multi Currency Savings Account (“the New Asia Fund”). The second is a property in Bali, Indonesia, bought for approximately US$300,000.00 in 2002 (“the Bali Property”). The third is the monies in two Fintro bank accounts owned by the defendant, which were the proceeds of sale from the parties’ former matrimonial home together with two adjoining garages, in Belgium (“the Belgian Property”).

The defendant prefers all matrimonial assets, save for the New Asia Fund, to be placed in a single pool and divided based on the parties’ respective contributions. He proposes that since he made all the financial contributions to the acquisition and maintenance of these assets, a division of 90% to him, with 10% given to the plaintiff in recognition of her non financial contribution, would be fair. He proposes that for the New Asia Fund, as the plaintiff had made financial contributions, she should be awarded 17%. The plaintiff claims that she is entitled to 50% of the Fintro accounts as well as 85% of the New Asia Fund. The Bali Property should also be transferred to her as she paid for most of it and did most of the work relating to its construction and management. The extent of financial and non-financial contributions is disputed by both parties. For instance, in relation to the Bali Property, while the plaintiff claimed that she made the bulk of the payments and played a major role in the construction and the management of the property, the defendant says the reverse is true. He claims that he negotiated all the construction contracts and maintained the property. In this regard, the following observation by the High Court in Yow Mee Lan v Chen Kai Buan [2000] 2 SLR(R) 659 at [43] ("Yow Mee Lan") must be borne in mind:

...[M]arriage is not a business where, generally, parties receive an economic reward commensurate with their economic input. It is a union in which the husband and wife work together for their common good and the good of their children. Each of them uses (or should use) his or her abilities and efforts for the welfare of the family and contributes whatever he or she is able to. The parties often have unequal abilities whether as parents or income earners but, as between them, this disparity of roles and talents should not result in unequal rewards where the contributions are made consistently and over a long period of time.

The court’s power to order division of matrimonial assets under s 112 of the Women’s Charter (Cap 353, 2009 Rev Ed) (“Women’s Charter”) must be exercised, as everyone knows, to obtain a “just and equitable” result. How that is to be achieved is the difficult part. In Yeo Chong Lin v Tay Ang Choo Nancy and another appeal [2011] 2 SLR 1157 at [78], the Court of Appeal recognised that the court was not expected to make an exact calculation of each spouse's contributions, whether financial or non-financial. Since bright lines are rarely clear in such matters, a broad brush approach is often the most appropriate in deciding what constitutes a just and equitable division. In this case, all the indications point to an equal contribution towards the matrimonial assets. I am thus inclined to order an equal division of the matrimonial assets. The parties were married for 18 years and were cohabiting about two or three years before marriage. The plaintiff, together with the children, accompanied the defendant when he moved from Belgium to Singapore for work in 2000. I am satisfied that most of the investments made by the couple were in fact joint decisions, with input by both parties, both financially and non-financially. These included the investment in the Bali Property and the New Asia Fund. While the monies in the Fintro bank accounts represent the proceeds of sale of the Belgian property which was purchased by the defendant before marriage, the property was the matrimonial home while the parties were in Belgium. The plaintiff had also helped to maintain, upkeep and improve the property. In addition to the plaintiff’s role as a housewife and caregiver to their two children, she was also a shareholder and director of Bromo Consulting Pte Ltd (“Bromo”), the company used by the defendant to run his business management and consultancy services. Although he claims that her role in the company was merely administrative, it nevertheless indicates the fact that both parties were involved in almost all of their economic endeavours throughout their marriage. In the light of both the financial and non-financial contributions by the plaintiff, she is entitled to a 50% of the matrimonial assets.

Although not directly addressed in the parties’ main submissions, there is an issue of whether the various inter-spousal gifts made by the parties to each other falls within or outside the pool of matrimonial assets. As indicated by the parties’ Ancillary Matters Fact and...