XNM v XNN

Facts

This was the ancillary matters hearing in Divorce (Transferred) No 4824 of 2022 between XNM, the Wife (aged 37, Russian), and XNN, the Husband (aged 48, Belarusian). They married on 11 November 2011, were married for just over 11 years and had no children. The Wife moved to Singapore in 2014. The Husband wholly owns a Singapore holding company, controls its wholly-owned subsidiary and is the sole director of both. The Wife worked for the holding company from about 2015 or 2016 until 1 October 2022, on a monthly salary of about $8,000. She began divorce proceedings on 17 October 2022 and interim judgment was granted on 8 May 2023.

The main question was division of the matrimonial assets. The parties held nothing jointly. The disputes concerned the Wife's jewellery and luxury items, the value of three properties in the Husband's name (a matrimonial home at Alexandra View, a one-bedroom unit on Newton Road, and a flat in Belarus), loans the Husband said he owed to three friends, and two guarantees he had given. The Wife also asked for maintenance only if the division did not adequately provide for her.

Issues

1. Whether the structured approach in ANJ v ANK applied, given the Wife's claim that this was a single-income marriage.
2. Whether the alleged loans from the Husband's friends and his guarantees should be deducted from, or added to, the pool of matrimonial assets.
3. What ratio of contributions applied and whether an adverse inference should be drawn against the Wife.
4. Whether the Wife should receive maintenance.

Holding

The High Court (Family Division) ordered that the matrimonial assets, valued at $2,090,411.09, be divided 20% to the Wife and 80% to the Husband. The court made no order on maintenance, holding that the Wife was not entitled to maintenance from the Husband.

Reasoning

The court rejected the Wife's argument that ANJ v ANK [2015] 4 SLR 1043 did not apply. For a large part of the marriage both spouses earned income, as she was paid by the holding company, which was in effect carrying on the Husband's business. Her jewellery and luxury items, given by the Husband, were pure inter-spousal gifts that stay in the pool; since she would not disclose details, the court accepted his evidence that he spent $100,000 on them. The Alexandra property was valued at $2,630,000 based on a recent nearby sale, less the mortgage and a term loan, giving $1,237,521.17. The Newton unit was valued at $990,000, giving $477,298.12 after the mortgage. With no evidence from either side on the Belarus flat, the court took the average of their figures, $200,000.

The Husband did not prove the loans he said he owed. The friends were not shareholders, the brief written loan agreements did not mention any profit share and sat oddly with his account of oral investment deals, the company withdrawals did not show the friends were entitled to the money, one friend's affidavit was bare assertion, and the bank records for the smaller sums did not show they came from that friend, some even stating other purposes. His luxurious travel also did not fit large debts. But the Wife could not add the sums to the pool either, since there was no evidence they still existed at the interim judgment date. Both guarantees, including the one for her studies at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, were contingent liabilities and were neither deducted nor added.

The Wife made no direct financial contributions, so the direct ratio was 100:0. She carried the larger share of housework and supervising a part-time helper, while the Husband made greater indirect financial contributions, so the indirect ratio was 50:50. The court gave both equal weight, distinguishing WUI v WUJ [2024] 5 SLR 979 and UDL v UDM [2017] SGFC 77 and following WAS v WAT [2022] SGHCF 7, giving 75:25. Because the Wife did not disclose her DBS Bank account until other documents revealed it, and produced only its closing statement, the court drew an adverse inference and, unable to quantify it, applied a 5% uplift to give 80:20.

On maintenance, the Wife would hold more than $400,000 in assets, was young and well-educated, and could find work, so no order was made.

From the judgment