VTQ v VTR

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: Chia Wee Kiat
• Judgment Date: 17 August 2021
• Neutral Citation: [2021] SGFC 85
• Citation: [2021] SGFC 85
• Court: Family Court (Singapore)
• Published date: 24 August 2021
• Docket Number: FC/D 2324/2019 (FC/RA 6/2021), HCF/RAS 16/2021
• Plaintiff Counsel: Ms Chiam Jia Ann (NETTO & MAGIN LLC)
• Defendant Counsel: Defendant-in-Person.
• Subject Matter: Family law,Discovery of documents
• Hearing Date: 21 July 2021

District Judge Chia Wee Kiat: Background

The Plaintiff shall be referred to as the “Wife” and the Defendant shall be referred to as the “Husband”.

The parties met through an online dating site sometime in 2004 and registered their marriage on 7 July 2006 in Vietnam. Soon after the marriage, the Wife came to live in Singapore with the Husband.¹ They have a young child to the marriage. The child has been in foster care since 17 May 2018.²

On 2 May 2018, the Wife left the matrimonial home all of a sudden.³ On 16 May 2019, the Wife filed for divorce on the ground that the Husband has behaved in such a way that she cannot reasonably be expected to live with him. The Husband contested the divorce and filed a counterclaim that the Wife has behaved in such a way that he cannot reasonably be expected to live with her.

At the contested divorce hearing on 25 March 2020, the parties came to a resolution for the divorce to proceed on an uncontested basis. Interim Judgment was granted by reason that the Wife has behaved in such a way that the Husband cannot reasonably be expected to live with her based on the contents of the amended counterclaim. The ancillary matters were adjourned to be heard in Chamber.

On 14 January 2021, the parties filed FC/SUM 135/2021 (“SUM 135”) and FC/SUM 138/2001 (“SUM 138”). These are discovery applications filed by the Husband and the Wife respectively.

The applications were heard before the learned Assistant Registrar (“the AR”) on 11 March 2021. The Husband’s application in SUM 135 was dismissed whilst discovery orders were made in respect of the Wife’s application in SUM 138. The Husband was ordered to pay costs of $800 and $500 respectively.

The Husband, who has since discharged his counsel, filed FC/SUM 1195/2021 (“SUM 1195”) for leave to file Notice of Appeal out of time against the decision of the AR given on 11 March 2021. The Wife resisted the application.

On 14 June 2021, I granted leave to the Husband to file the Notice of Appeal out of time against the AR’s decision only in respect of SUM 135. Briefly, I applied the applicable legal principles for extension of time set out by the Court of Appeal in AD v AE [2004] 2 SLR (R) 505 (at [10]). As it is trite law that an applicant is to bear the costs of the application for an extension of time (see Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Ltd and another v Fraser & Neave Ltd and others [2001] 3 SLR(R) 355 (at [47])), I ordered costs of $800 to be paid by the Husband notwithstanding that he had partially succeeded in his application for extension of time.

Pursuant to the extension of time granted, the Husband filed FC/RA 6/2021 (“RA 6”) on 16 June 2021 against the AR’s decision in SUM 135. I heard RA 6 on 21 July 2021. In contesting the appeal, the Wife relied substantially on the written submissions made before the AR. Having heard and considered the parties’ submissions, I found that there were merits in the Husband’s application for the discovery orders.

In the circumstances, I allowed the appeal and set aside the order of the AR given on 11 March 2021 in respect of SUM 135. I granted an order-in-terms of prayer 1 of SUM 135 save for sub-prayers (1)-(3) of prayer 1(5) which were withdrawn at the hearing before the AR. The Wife is to file and serve the affidavit of disclosure by 18 August 2021. Costs in favour of the Husband was fixed at $1,000.

As the Wife has since appealed against my decision vide HCF/RAS 16/2021 filed on 3 August 2021, I now set out my grounds of decision.

The Husband’s discovery application

The Husband applied for discovery of 5 items of documents under prayer 1(1) to (5) of the application. For ease of reference, the documents sought are tabulated as follows:

Item	Documents requested	Bank account (where applicable)	Period
1	Bank statements	POSB Savings 279-XXXXX-X	May 2018-March 2020
		OCBC Savings 522XXXXXXXXX	May 2018-February 2020 and June 2020
		UOB Savings 366-XXX-XXX-X	May 2018-March 2020
2	Bank statements	Vietcombank A/C No. 0-02X-X-XX-XXXXXX-X	May 2018 – June 2020
3	Bank statements/if the account is closed, a letter from the bank confirming the period of operation, the final amount that was withdrawn and documents showing where such monies were remitted to	HSBC Vietnam A/C No. 102-XXXXXX-XXX	May 2018-June 2020
		Vietinbank Vietnam Account (account number unknown)	May 2018-June 2020
		Agribank Account (account number unknown)	May 2018-June 2020
4	Bank accounts for [PTG] Pte Ltd of which the Wife is the sole director/if the account is closed, a letter from the bank confirming the period of operation, the final amount that was withdrawn and documents showing where such monies were remitted to		May 2018-June 2020
5	Property in Vietnam: 1. [Withdrawn]; 2. [Withdrawn]; 3. [Withdrawn]; 4. Evidence of where sale proceeds were remitted and/or utilized; and 5. Evidence of sale proceeds paid to the Husband

Before the AR, the Husband withdrew sub-prayers (1) to (3) of prayer 1(5).⁴ The appeal was therefore confined to the AR’s dismissal of prayer 1(1) to (4) and sub-prayers (4) and (5) of prayer 1(5).

The Husband’s position

The Husband states that he had been a devoted husband and at the Wife’s behest had resigned from a stable job in the government sector in order to move to Vietnam so that she could spend more time with her widowed mother.⁵ The parties migrated to Vietnam in 2012 and the Husband started liquidating his assets and transferring his monies to Vietnam for living expenses and investment purposes.⁶ This included a sum of USD $210,000.00 which he brought to Vietnam on 3 January 2014.⁷ The decision to move to Vietnam resulted in the Husband forfeiting a payout of approximately $500,000 from an investment pension scheme upon retirement.⁸

The Husband says that [PTG] Pte Ltd is a company set up in Vietnam wherein the Wife is the sole director. The Husband invested about $60,000 in the company which was involved in the trading of domestic ware, F&B goods and clothing. The business was run mainly by the Wife’s brother and mother. The inventory was stored in the property in Vietnam (Item 5) purchased by him in the Wife’s sole name sometime in 2013.⁹

With the unexpected birth of their son in December 2012, the parties subsequently decided that Singapore may be a better environment to bring up children and agreed to move back permanently to Singapore.¹⁰ Arrangements were made for monies that had been transferred to Vietnam to be returned to Singapore. There was hence a remittance of VND 2.252 billion from the Wife’s HSBC bank account in Vietnam.¹¹

The Husband says the Wife unexpectedly left the matrimonial flat on 2 May 2018 and he verily believes that she did so in contemplation of divorce.¹² The Wife only filed for divorce on 16 May 2019, more than a year after she left. There is more than sufficient time for her to have taken steps to dissipate her assets.¹³ The Husband is asking for the Wife’s bank statements for the period commencing May 2018¹⁴ as he believes that the balance of $8,799.87 across the Wife’s three local bank accounts held solely in her name as disclosed in the Wife’s Affidavit of Assets and Means (“AOM”) is not a true reflection of the extent of her savings.¹⁵

The Husband says that the property in Vietnam was purchased at VND 3.35 billion, paid wholly by him. It was sold for approximately VND 4 billion in 2015. The Husband believes that the Wife continues to retain the sale proceeds having returned to him only $10,000. He cannot say for certain whether the monies remain in Vietnam, have been reinvested or have been remitted back to Singapore as the Wife has failed to produce evidence of the sale price, bank statements showing receipt of the sale proceeds in her bank account and what happened to the proceeds subsequently.¹⁶

The Husband says that a search conducted on the website of the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment shows that the company [PTG] Pte Ltd is still active.¹⁷ It is unlikely that the company would not have a bank account.¹⁸

The Wife’s position

The Wife’s position in respect of each discovery item may be summarised as follows: Item 1 (3 local bank accounts) – The Wife says she has given discovery of the past 3 months of her bank accounts as required by the Practice Directions (“PD”).¹⁹ The Husband has all that is relevant and necessary to determine the Wife’s matrimonial assets with respect to these bank accounts. The Husband is on a fishing expedition.²⁰ Item 2 (Vietcombank account) – The Wife says that she has made attempts to request for more detailed bank statements but was told she needed to be personally present in Vietnam which is impossible for her given the current pandemic.²¹ In her reply affidavit, she states that she is not living in Vietnam and is a Singapore permanent resident who intends to live in Singapore.²² She does not see why she should be troubling her family members to assist in a request of the Husband’s when the basis of his request is completely unfounded.²³ Item 3 (3 Vietnamese bank accounts) – The Wife says the Husband has no basis for requesting for the past statements of these closed accounts.²⁴ The requested bank statements should be denied on the grounds that the Husband has not shown necessity for their discovery.²⁵ In any event, the Wife says she is unable to provide any information or documents from the banks. She has exhibited her attempts to request for documents from Agribank and Vietinbank but they have both required her physical presence in Vietnam to do so which is again not possible during this pandemic period.²⁶ Likewise, she does not see why she should be troubling her family members to assist.²⁷ As for HSBC Vietnam, the Wife says the...