SINGAPORE: A man who signed a prenuptial agreement that ring-fenced several assets solely owned by his former wife has failed to persuade the courts here to disregard the contract.
The ring-fenced assets comprised three bank accounts solely in the woman’s name, four apartments in Shanghai, and a medical device company she founded before the marriage.
High Court judge Teh Hwee Hwee rejected the Singaporean’s claim that he had been coerced into signing the prenup, which was sent to him two days before the wedding.
In written grounds issued on March 20, Justice Teh said there was no evidence to support his contention that the prenup was signed under duress.
However, the judge adjusted the terms of the prenup “to achieve a just and equitable division of the matrimonial assets”.
The judge also included more assets – including the wife’s collection of luxury goods and the man’s ice-cream business – into the pool to be divided between the couple.
This meant that the man’s appeal resulted in the monetary value of his share increasing by about S$206,000.
A district judge had earlier valued the matrimonial assets at $936,460, with the husband getting 55 per cent, or more than $515,000.
Justice Teh valued the revised matrimonial assets at $1.4 million, with the husband getting 50.5 per cent, or more than $721,000.
The 39-year-old man and the woman, a 38-year-old businesswoman from China, got married in Singapore in February 2018.
Two days before the wedding, she sent him the agreement with an offer to postpone the marriage if he needed to seek legal advice and make necessary amendments.
The man filed for divorce in April 2022, and interim judgment was granted in May 2023, dissolving the five-year marriage. They do not have any children from the marriage.
The division of matrimonial assets was first dealt with by a district judge, who upheld the prenuptial agreement, which was governed under Chinese law.
The district judge excluded the ring-fenced assets from the pool of assets to be divided.
Only the matrimonial home, valued at $630,490; the wife’s Porsche 911, valued at $250,000; and the husband’s Mercedes-Benz E200, valued at $55,970, were included in the pool.
The husband’s business, paintings and CPF account balances, as well as the wife’s collection of luxury goods, were also excluded.
The luxury goods comprised bags from Hermes, Chanel and Dior, jewellery from Van Cleef & Arpels, and a $20,000 Walter Knoll coffee table.
The man appealed to the High Court, saying that the woman’s company and its assets, as well as the money in her bank accounts, should be included in the pool.
The disputed accounts comprise two ring-fenced accounts and another account that was not specified in the prenup.
They hold nearly $2 million – a mixture of funds from the company, money the woman accumulated before the marriage, and income she earned during the marriage.
In rejecting his argument to disregard the prenup, Justice Teh said that while the man alleged coercion or duress, his explanation was limited to time pressure arising from completed wedding preparations.
The judge noted that by the man’s own account, the agreement was signed two days before the couple registered their marriage at the Registry of Marriages, with no mention of any elaborate ceremony.
She said: “His attempt to bolster his case and persuade the court to give the agreement no weight, by reference to wedding preparations involving hundreds of guests, presumably to demonstrate potentially serious social repercussions or wasted costs, was entirely unsupported by the evidence.”
Justice Teh also concluded that the terms of the prenup were consistent with the couple’s conduct and intentions to maintain financial separation as far as the woman’s company and its assets were concerned.
However, Justice Teh included 5 per cent of the money in the disputed bank accounts, or $99,600, into the pool of matrimonial assets.
The judge said she adopted a broad brush approach in finding this amount to be a reasonable approximation of the wife’s savings derived from her personal income during the marriage.
Justice Teh also added to the pool of assets the woman’s luxury goods, valued at $216,500; the man’s business, valued at $60,000; his paintings, valued at $5,000; and his CPF balances, valued at $111,824.
The judge also shifted the final percentage of division slightly in favour of the wife, by less than five percentage points, from 45 per cent to 49.5 per cent.
This was to account for changes to the direct financial contributions made by each spouse. - The Straits Times/ANN
