WZF v WZG [2025] SGHCF 1

Facts

1          The parties were married for 8 years and had one child, aged 6 at the time of the proceedings. In the ancillary matters proceedings, the Husband withheld disclosure of key assets such as his share of an Indonesian company worth at least S$10 million, instead only disclosing a limited number of bank accounts and CPF accounts worth only S$11,819.29. Even after a discovery order was made against the Husband, he only provided piecemeal and incomplete disclosure of the other assets. The Wife submitted that an adverse inference should be drawn against the Husband. The Wife asked that the child’s reasonable maintenance include the components of enrichment classes and a Netflix subscription.

Court’s Decision:

2          The Husband had attempted to evade disclosure of his assets at every turn: (a) he failed to disclose any of his key assets from the get-go; (b) when certain assets were identified by the Wife, the Husband then declared them but claimed that none of the relevant documents allowing for a meaningful valuation were available; and (c) when the Wife provided documents suggestive of these assets being worth a princely sum, the Husband audaciously ignored them and urged the court to assume that his net assets in these companies were worth nothing.: at [57].

3          An adverse inference may be drawn where there is a substratum of evidence that establishes a prima facie case of concealment against the person whom the inference is to be drawn against, and that person must have had some particular access to the information that they are said to be hiding. It was clear to the Court that this was established in respect of the Husband in relation to the value of his assets in every respect and in particular, in relation to the companies in which he held an interest in.: at [58].

4          The court’s power to draw an adverse inference and give effect to that inference is precisely to “counter the effects of non-disclosure of assets which diminishes the value of the matrimonial pool and thereby places those assets out of the reach of the other party for the purposes of division under s 112 of the [Charter].” Such non-disclosure represents the “cancer of matrimonial property litigation”. Much like dealing with cancer, there is merit in appropriate cases to taking aggressive approaches to cure such ills.: at [61].

5          There are two broad approaches that are generally adopted to give effect to an adverse inference arising from non-disclosure: (a) the court may make a finding on the value of the undisclosed assets and include that value in the matrimonial pool for division (the “quantification approach”); and (b) the court may order a higher proportion of the known assets to be awarded to the other party (the “uplift approach”). The decision regarding which method to apply is a matter of judgment in any specific case, and the court should adopt the method it considers most appropriate in achieving a “just and equitable division of the true material gains of the parties’ marriage.”. In appropriate circumstances, both approaches may be applied simultaneously where the court is confident that one party is intentionally under-declaring or concealing assets to a significant extent.: at [59], [60].

6          The Court held that in the context of this case, the court held that it would be inappropriate to pass judgment on whether the child should attend certain enrichment classes. What enrichment classes the child should attend are fundamentally parenting decisions involving parents’ views and aspirations for the child, and a court of law is not the most appropriate forum to resolve such parenting matters. Nonetheless, even if a certain item may be considered to be a “luxury”, where both parties agree and are willing to shoulder a certain expense for the child and there is evidence that the child has been incurring such expense, it may be reasonable and sensible for such sums to be included in the quantum of child maintenance.: at [106], [107], [109].

The full text of the decision can be found here.

This summary is provided to assist the public to have a better understanding of the Court’s judgment. It is not intended to be a substitute for the reasons of the Court. All numbers in bold font and square brackets refer to the corresponding paragraph numbers in the Court’s judgment.