SINGAPORE: A man getting divorced has been ordered by a judicial commissioner to include around $10 million in the assets to be divided between him and his wife. A report in The Straits Times (ST) says that the assets set for division between the pair were only around $100,000 before adding this amount.
Judicial Commissioner Mohamed Faizal Mohamed Abdul Kadir awarded the woman 69% of the assets. She had initially only asked for 50%. As a result, she was awarded around $7 million, while the man was left with about $3.1 million. His order to include the bulk of the wealth was meant to reflect the court’s “utter contempt” at the man’s attempt to conceal his wealth.
The judicial commissioner said the man’s actions “represent a fraud not just on the court, but on all the parties involved in the litigation and the wider justice system.”
He also noted that the man, who owns millions of dollars in assets, had presented to the court an “utterly unbelievable picture of a net financial worth of just tens of thousands of dollars”.
The couple’s backstory
The man, 39, is an Australian national, and his wife, 38, is a Malaysian working in Singapore. They have a child, 6, who attends a childcare centre in the city-state. In 2022, the man moved out of their home, and the woman filed for divorce sometime later.
The man told the court that his CPF account did not contain money or shares in Singapore or other countries. He only declared three bank accounts totalling $11,732 for their divorce proceedings.
When his former wife filed a discovery application, the courts could compel her former husband to submit documents about his financial affairs, including his income tax statements in Singapore and Australia and the financial statements of his companies in different countries.
It also included the value of a family trust held in his name.
The man, however, declared that he earned $7,500 a month and said that the documents concerning the value of his businesses were not available. He also said his family trust account has had no income. Many of the man’s financial claims were without documentary evidence.
However, the man’s actual financial assets were revealed during discovery.
The couple was given joint custody of their child, and the judicial commissioner set the child’s maintenance at $3,700 a month, though the parents are required to split school fees. The woman is said to earn nearly $15,000 monthly. /TISG