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 (RM702,046) out of the S$495,000 he had lent her.
Sin denied owing him money and contended in a counterclaim that she had lent him more than S$1mil, of which S$578,000 (RM1.8mil) remains unpaid.
She said she had first lent S$800,000 to Chan in 2013 after she and her then husband remortgaged their matrimonial home in Serangoon Gardens for S$1.26mil.
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 Jan 5, Senior Judge Chan Seng Onn dismissed Chan’s claim for S$222,000 and allowed Sin’s counterclaim for S$578,000.
The lynchpin of Sin’s case was a document signed by Chan acknowledging the S$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 S$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 S$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.
Chan, a professional engineer, and Sin are business partners in TC Sin & Associates, a firm that provides engineering consultancy services.
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 casinos 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.
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 Sin, seeking recovery of more than S$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
