WXD v WXC

WXD (the Husband) and WXC (the Wife) married on 12 December 2009, each for the second time. They had two sons, one with autism and the other with learning difficulties. The Wife, who had run a school canteen drinks stall until March 2018, suffered strokes in 2017 and August 2020 that left her unable to walk; the Husband ran his own transport-related businesses. The Wife filed for divorce on 12 August 2020 and interim judgment was granted on 4 March 2021.

On 23 January 2024 a District Judge gave the Wife care and control of the children and divided the matrimonial assets using a classification approach: the matrimonial home, which the Wife had bought with her late husband, separately, and the remaining assets by averaging direct contributions of 64.5% to the Wife with indirect contributions weighted in the Husband's favour. She excluded about $452,031.10 in critical illness insurance payouts to the Wife, and refused to add a company owned by a Ms X, said by the Wife to be the Husband's mistress, to the pool. Both parties appealed to the High Court (Family Division) in District Court Appeals Nos 16 and 17 of 2024, and the Wife applied in Summons No 210 of 2024 to adduce fresh evidence about that company.

1. Whether the Wife should be allowed to adduce fresh evidence on appeal about the company held by Ms X.
2. Whether the Wife's critical illness insurance payouts were matrimonial assets.
3. Whether the District Judge correctly assessed the parties' direct and indirect contributions and the weight between them.
4. Whether an adverse inference should be drawn that the company held by Ms X represented value belonging in the matrimonial pool.

The fresh evidence failed the non-availability requirement in Ladd v Marshall [1954] 1 WLR 1489, even applied less strictly to ancillary proceedings. The Wife had raised the company's role from early on and could have gathered such material, or sued Ms X as a third party, below; her counsel's statement that her son was instructed to gather evidence for the appeal showed an attempt at a second bite of the cherry. The documents were also undated or post-dated the short window between the company's registration on 12 September 2020 and the interim judgment.

Following VDZ v VEA [2020] 4 SLR 921, the insurance payouts were meant to cover the Wife's medical needs after her strokes, not family income, so they were rightly excluded, with no evidence of bad faith in buying the policies. The dispute about the Husband's Malaysian properties fell away after the Wife's counsel confirmed she would transfer them.

On direct contributions, the District Judge erred in crediting the Wife with all assets in her sole name when she earned under $20,000.00 a year and the evidence suggested pooled funds, with the Husband handing his income to her. But a WhatsApp exchange showed the Husband acknowledging monthly repayments of 25k to her, and the court found, despite his denials, that she had lent him money, including to settle a 2013 bankruptcy application, and helped in his businesses. On a broad-brush view, equal direct contributions were fair. The indirect contributions assessment was left undisturbed: the Wife bore the main caregiving load for two children with special needs and kept supervising their care after her strokes, while the Husband's role was real but not exclusive. Nothing in this mid-length marriage justified weighting direct over indirect contributions, and the rounding complaint was without merit and moot.

On the company, the court held that lifting the corporate veil was inapposite; the question was whether Ms X held the shares on trust for the Husband. Following BPC v BPB and another appeal [2019] 1 SLR 608, there was no substratum of evidence of diverted assets or pre-judgment income. The suspicious circumstances were equally consistent with genuine ownership by Ms X, the Husband's companies had grown in value, and no unexplained withdrawals were shown.

The court allowed the Husband's appeal in part, recalibrating the parties' direct contributions to the assets other than the matrimonial home to an equal split, so that the Wife's total share became $961,340.82 and the Husband's $765,166.18. The rest of the Husband's appeal, the Wife's appeal and her fresh evidence application were dismissed, and costs of the appeals were left to be agreed or heard.