SINGAPORE: After their extramarital affair of nearly 30 years ended, two former lovers sued each other over the money they had transferred between themselves over the years.
Chan Tuck Cheong sued Sin Wee Hiong, claiming that she still owes him S$222,000 out of the $495,000 he had lent her.
Sin denied that she owed him money. Instead, she contended in a counterclaim that she had lent him more than $1 million, of which $578,000 remains unpaid.
She said she first lent $800,000 to Chan in 2013 after she and her then husband remortgaged their matrimonial home in Serangoon Gardens for $1.26 million.
Sin said Chan had asked her to do so because he needed the funds to redevelop his landed property in Bedok.
In a written judgment on Monday (Jan 5), Senior Judge Chan Seng Onn dismissed Chan’s claim for $222,000 and allowed Sin’s counterclaim for $578,000.
The lynchpin of Sin’s case was a document signed by Chan acknowledging the $800,000 loan, the judge noted.
Chan admitted that he had signed the document but claimed he did not receive the money.
He said Sin had asked him to sign the document so that she could show it to her husband.
Chan suggested that she needed money for gambling, which prompted her to hatch a plan to get her husband to agree to take a bank loan by deceiving him into believing that the money was to be lent to Chan.
But the judge said Chan failed to prove that the signed acknowledgement was created as a sham document.
As a long time had passed since then, neither party could provide bank records to help determine whether $800,000 had in fact been received by Chan.
The judge said the burden was on the claimant to prove that there was an intention to mislead Sin’s husband, and the court required more cogent and forceful evidence to make such a finding.
Justice Chan found that Sin had indeed lent Chan $800,000 in 2013, as reflected in the document.
The judge concluded that the transfers from Chan to Sin between 2017 and 2021 were partial repayments of the loan.
The judge also found that 12 further transfers from Sin to Chan between 2018 and 2019 were fresh loans.
Justice Chan said Sin had given some substantiation that Chan needed funds for one of his companies and his daughter’s overseas education.
Chan, a professional engineer, and Sin are business partners in TC Sin & Associates, a firm that provides engineering consultancy services. The firm was started by Sin’s father in 1972.
Chan joined the firm in 1990 and became a partner in 1994. He later set up other companies, including one named ICPH International.
Chan and Sin were married to their respective spouses when they began their affair in 1993, though she divorced her husband in 2017.
According to the judgment, the lovers were heavy gamblers and frequented the Resorts World Sentosa casino together.
Sin became a partner of TC Sin & Associates in 2019. She was also a director or shareholder in Chan’s companies at various times.
Her former husband, Chow Kwong Wah, worked at TC Sin & Associates as a clerk of works. From 2013 to 2015, he was employed as a project manager at ICPH.
When giving his testimony, Chow said that he had treated Chan as a colleague and family friend.
He added that he was not wealthy, and that Madam Sin’s parents not only financed their honeymoon but also a large part of the cost of their matrimonial property.
Justice Chan said that, against this backdrop, it was perfectly understandable why Chow would be deferential to Sin’s management of the finances, as he was fully cognisant that he did not contribute much towards their property.
During the couple’s divorce, the unpaid balance of the $800,000 loan was not listed as a matrimonial asset because Chow said he was not thinking about money at the time.
He added that he had consented to Sin’s request for a simplified track divorce in exchange for her promise to stay with him and the children for three years after the divorce, as he still loved her and did not wish to hurt their children and grandchildren.
The affair ended in 2022.
In May 2023, Sin sued Chan for minority oppression, in response to his actions, such as removing her as a director of one of his companies.
In July that year, ICPH sued Madam Sin, seeking recovery of more than $69,000 in outstanding loans.
The following month, Chan filed the current suit. The pair agreed to proceed with the current suit while keeping the two other cases on hold. - The Straits Times/ANN
