CVC v CVB

The parties married on 3 January 2008 and had three children. The Husband was a director of three car workshop companies; the Wife was a company secretary and vice president in a corporate group. The Husband filed for divorce on 27 April 2017 and interim judgment was granted on 9 May 2018. At the ancillary hearing, a Family Division judge gave the Wife care and control, ordered the sale of a jointly owned Bishan flat and a shop unit at Concorde Shopping Centre with the proceeds split 78:22 and 98:2 in the Husband's favour, and left each party with their own assets. The judge had found that $400,000 the Husband transferred to the Wife in April 2008 was a loan, so the Wife's payments towards both properties were credited to him. She also applied a 25% discount for lack of marketability to one of the workshop companies, drew an adverse inference against the Wife, rejected her allegation that the Husband had hidden $163m offshore, ordered child maintenance of $2,700 and later $3,600 a month, refused backdated maintenance, and ordered the Wife to pay part of the Husband's disbursements. The Wife appealed in Civil Appeal No 68 of 2022.

1. Whether the judge erred in valuing the matrimonial pool, including the marketability discount and the sums treated as dissipated by the Wife.
2. Whether the 2008 transfer was a loan, a gift, or money the Husband intended to share.
3. Whether the judge erred on indirect contributions and in drawing an adverse inference against the Wife.
4. Whether CPF moneys must always be refunded before sale proceeds are divided.
5. Whether child maintenance should be increased and backdated, and whether the costs order should stand.

The court found that the judge's grounds mixed figures from successive joint summaries, and that she made her division orders before the pool was finally identified, which was an error in principle since the pool must be valued first. It removed a $75,000 Honda both sides agreed was wrongly included. The court-appointed valuer had sound reasons not to apply a marketability discount, so its valuation of $1,079,816 for the businesses was adopted. A sum the Wife showed had been returned to her disclosed account would be double-counted if also treated as dissipated.

The 2008 transfer was neither a loan nor a gift. The Husband never sought repayment, and the evidence showed he intended the money to be shared and used for joint property and family expenses. A sufficient link was shown between that money and the Wife's payment for the Bishan flat, which stayed credited to the Husband, but not for her Concorde payment, which was made before the funds were redeemed.

Equal indirect contributions were reasonable given that both parents worked and shared caregiving at different times. No adverse inference should have been drawn against the Wife: her income and assets did not show a prima facie mismatch, and late disclosure is a matter for costs. None was warranted against the Husband either.

The court disagreed with WBI v WBJ [2023] 3 SLR 998 that CPF refunds must always precede division; either approach is acceptable provided each party's total share reflects the division ratio. On maintenance, the judge had used the wrong agreed figure for the children's expenses; the court assessed them at $14,000 a month. Backdated maintenance was limited to two years because the Wife had made no attempt to raise maintenance with the Husband and there were strong indications that she was distancing the children from him.

The Appellate Division allowed the appeal in part. It valued the pool at $4,292,992.84 and set the final division at 58% to the Husband and 42% to the Wife, directing the parties to work out consequential orders. It ordered the Husband to pay $4,600 a month in child maintenance and backdated maintenance of $110,400. The equal indirect contributions ratio and the costs order below were upheld, and no order was made on the costs of the appeal.