WGM v WGN

WGM v WGN was an application by a former husband in Divorce (Transferred) No 2222 of 2014, brought by Summons No 3577 of 2024, asking the High Court (Family Division) to fix, ahead of the ancillary matters hearing, the date for deciding which assets fall into the matrimonial pool and the date for valuing them.

The husband founded and ran a precision metal machining company; the wife used to work for it. They married on 27 July 1994 and have two children. After the wife asked for a divorce, they signed a deed of settlement on 3 April 2014, interim judgment was granted on 10 July 2014, and its clause 3 provided for equal division, with the husband to pay the wife $9.3m. Final judgment followed on 30 October 2014 and both remarried.

In 2020 the parties sued each other over the company. In May 2020 the husband discovered that the older child was not his biological child, and on 3 December 2021 the court set aside clause 3 of the interim judgment for fraudulent non-disclosure by the wife. The ancillary matters therefore had to be heard afresh. The wife then obtained discovery orders reaching into the company's related-party transactions up to 2022, and an Assistant Registrar held that the operative dates were for the ancillary matters judge. The husband's appeals against those orders were stood down until this application was decided.

1. Whether the operative dates should be fixed now rather than at the ancillary matters hearing
2. Whether the date for identifying the matrimonial pool should depart from the interim judgment date
3. Whether all matrimonial assets should be valued at the interim judgment date instead of the hearing date

The court accepted that these dates are usually fixed at the ancillary matters hearing, but found the case unusual: the divorce was finalised over ten years earlier and the ancillary matters were being reopened only because clause 3 had been set aside in 2021. Deciding the dates first would avoid the cost of possibly onerous and unnecessary discovery. It also rejected the wife's argument that the husband could not rely on the interim judgment date while having attacked clause 3, since both sides agreed that date had not changed.

On the pool, the wife said the marriage only practically ended around March 2020, citing continued cordial dealings and their joint running of the company. The court preferred the husband's evidence. Within one year the parties had filed for divorce by consent, signed the deed, obtained interim judgment, settled the ancillary matters by consent and obtained final judgment; the wife remarried on 1 April 2015 and the husband in May 2017. Working together as business partners and communicating for the children did not mean the marriage continued, and the wife's work for the company was as an employee. There was no cogent reason to depart from the default.

On valuation, the default is the hearing date, save for bank and CPF accounts. The cases relied on by the husband did not fit, because there the party alleging dissipation wanted an earlier date. Here the wife wanted the later date to catch alleged dissipation after the divorce, which raised whether there were any matrimonial assets left to dissipate between 2019 and 2022. Since the divorce was final in 2014, the husband's assets as of 2019 could hardly be matrimonial assets, and his later handling of his own or the company's resources could not reduce the pool. The parties had agreed to divide on 2014 values, and using a later date would let the wife share in growth owing to his sole efforts after the divorce. Adopting the interim judgment date for valuing all assets was just and equitable.

The court allowed the husband's application and ordered that both the date for determining the pool of matrimonial assets and the date for valuing them be the interim judgment date, 10 July 2014. Costs were reserved.