WLL v WLM

This decision dealt with costs in Divorce Transferred No 4401 of 2021 after the High Court's ancillary judgment of 3 April 2023 in WLL v WLM [2023] SGHCF 19, which made no order for the wife's maintenance and ordered the husband to pay her $1,467,516.56 as her share of the matrimonial assets.

The husband relied on an offer to settle dated 29 August 2022, made under r 446 of the Family Justice Rules 2014 and left open until judgment, in which he offered the wife $1,840,000.00 on the division of assets. The wife did not accept it. He argued that the judgment was not less favourable to him than the offer, and sought standard costs up to the offer, indemnity costs after it, and disbursements, fixed at $41,001.21 in total. The wife's counsel argued for no order as to costs: the offer gave her less time to move out of the home where both parties still lived, the difference reflected market movements in the home's valuation, and the husband had been uncooperative, including failing to make full disclosure, using an affidavit sworn but not filed, and rejecting mediation.

1. Whether the judgment obtained was not less favourable to the husband than the terms of his offer to settle.
2. Whether the offer to settle was genuine so as to justify a costs order in his favour.
3. Whether costs should be awarded on the indemnity basis, and whether the husband's conduct should deprive him of costs.

On the comparison, the court noted that timelines for carrying out the division had never been argued at the ancillary hearing. In any event, the gap of over $300,000 between the offer and the judgment sum adequately covered the wife's extra rent and moving costs under the offer's timeline, so the judgment was not less favourable to the husband.

On genuineness, the court applied JBB v JBA [2015] 5 SLR 0153, under which costs principles are applied more sensitively in matrimonial cases, and Resorts World at Sentosa Pte Ltd v Goel Adesh Kumar and another appeal [2018] 2 SLR 1070. Correspondence showed the husband had repeatedly tried to settle, and a six-week period to move out was not so unreasonable as to make the offer illusory or coercive.

On the basis of costs, further affidavits and a discovery application had added seven months after the offer. The court rejected the argument that the difference was due to market movements, noting that its rejection of the wife's adverse inference argument was a significant factor. The husband's non-disclosure, limited to his trading accounts, was wrong but had no material bearing on the outcome, and refusing mediation did not show unnecessary delay. Standard costs throughout were fair.

The High Court allowed the husband's costs application in part, holding him entitled to costs but assessing them on the standard basis for all work done rather than partly on the indemnity basis, and ordered the wife to pay him costs fixed at $25,000, inclusive of disbursements.