Denzel Pak Juin Tern v Leow Quek Shiong and another

The claimant, Mr Denzel Pak Juin Tern, sued as administrator of the estate of his late mother, Ms Lim Huey Yih, who died on 29 June 2017. The defendants were the private trustees in bankruptcy of his aunt, Ms Lim Huey Ching, a member of the family that controlled Hin Leong Trading (Pte) Ltd. After Hin Leong's collapse, Ms Lim consented to judgments ordering her to pay damages of over US$4bn and was adjudged bankrupt on 19 December 2024.

The dispute concerned a condominium unit at 8 Walshe Road, #06-01, Chelsea Gardens, bought in 1997 in Ms Lim's sole name for S$3,819,270. It was funded by her father, Mr Lim Oon Kuin (Mr OK Lim), from a bank account he beneficially owned and a loan he guaranteed. In her bankruptcy application Ms Lim declared that the unit was held on trust for her nephew. Mr Pak claimed that in 2000 Ms Lim, his mother and Mr OK Lim orally agreed that Ms Lim would hold the unit on trust for his mother, with Mr OK Lim paying for it and being repaid later. He said his mother repaid her father in 2015 with dividends from her shares in two ship-owning companies, Nan Hui and Xin Hui. He relied on a common intention constructive trust, alternatively a resulting trust, and failing those, unjust enrichment. The trustees in bankruptcy disputed the whole account.

1. Whether Ms Lim, Mr OK Lim and the deceased shared a common intention that the property be held on trust for the deceased.
2. If not, whether a resulting trust arose over the property in favour of the deceased.
3. If neither trust arose, whether Ms Lim was unjustly enriched at the deceased's expense.
4. Whether Ms Lim could maintain privilege over her 2022 emails to her former solicitors.

The court said trust claims over a bankrupt's high-value assets call for especially careful scrutiny, because success removes the asset from the creditors' pool. The alleged 2000 agreement rested on bare assertions by Ms Lim and Mr OK Lim with no written record of any kind over two decades, while every document pointed to Ms Lim as owner. Her sworn positions were also irreconcilable. She left the unit out of her sister's estate in 2018, declared it as held solely by her in two affidavits in June 2021 while disclosing other trusts, and only reversed course in September 2024, shortly before the consent judgments and her bankruptcy. Two affidavits filed four days apart gave conflicting reasons for the change. Her later reliance on legal advice and on lawyers who supposedly ignored her 2022 instructions was unsupported and implausible.

The repayment story also failed. No one kept track of what was owed, the dividends did not match the sums spent on the property, and the dividend sets named in the pleadings, her affidavit and her 2022 emails differed from one another. The court further doubted that the deceased beneficially owned the shares at all. The dividends went straight into Mr OK Lim's joint account. The shares were transferred at par value six days before her death while she was in intensive care. Ms Lim and her brother accepted that their father decided who held shares in the family's companies. The court held that this point was open to the trustees because it flowed from Mr Pak's own pleaded case. Later conduct was at best equivocal: the deceased's brief occupation and renovation of the unit did not show ownership, Mr Pak's payments of tax and charges began only in 2024, and Ms Lim never transferred the unit or declared a trust despite being free to do so and familiar with trust documents.

The resulting trust claim failed on the facts and in law. A resulting trust must arise at acquisition, and in 1997 the deceased was party to no funding arrangement, so a later agreement in 2000 could not create one. With neither trust established, equity followed the law. The unjust enrichment claim, framed as failure of basis, failed for the same reasons: no payment by the deceased was proved and no shared basis existed. On privilege, Ms Lim impliedly waived it by repeatedly relying on the emails in testimony after they were voluntarily disclosed. The court noted, without deciding, the open question of whether trustees in bankruptcy may deploy a bankrupt's privileged material in court against the bankrupt's objection.

The court dismissed all of Mr Pak's claims. There was no common intention constructive trust and no resulting trust, so Ms Lim, as legal owner, was also the beneficial owner of the property, and it remained part of her bankruptcy estate. The unjust enrichment claim also failed. Ms Lim's privilege objection over the 2022 emails was overruled on the basis of implied waiver. Costs were to be heard separately.