Singapore businessman cancels $9m divorce deal after discovering first-born child is not his

A wealthy businessman scuttled a $9 million divorce settlement that was signed with his ex-wife almost a decade ago because he discovered that his first-born child was fathered by someone else.

The shocking discovery happened six years after the divorce when the child was about 20 years old. It was not disclosed how the man discovered that he was not the biological father after having been kept in the dark for over two decades during his marriage.

There was no mention of the identity of the real father, but the 64-year-old man, the founder and managing director of a manufacturing company, was so incensed by the revelation that he launched a lawsuit to nullify the divorce settlement, which had given half of his assets to the ex-wife.

This case provides a compelling lesson on the seriousness of withholding critical information in a settlement deal because it can give reasons for the aggrieved party to nullify the deal, which will almost certainly result in financial losses.

In this case, the man said he was fraudulently misled by his ex-wife, 56, who used to work in his company, because she failed to tell him the older child was not his biological offspring throughout the marriage and when they parted in 2014.

Apart from the first-born, who is 25 now, the couple have a 23-year-old child. The sex of the siblings was not disclosed for privacy reasons.

The woman had remarried in 2015, about six months after the divorce. As for the businessman, he, too, settled down with his new wife about three years later, in 2017.

As part of their amicable split in 2014, the man agreed to share their matrimonial assets equally and this resulted in him paying his ex-wife $9.3 million as her share.

The ex-wife maintained that she had long disclosed to the businessman that the older child was not his biological child.

But when the High Court heard the case in 2025, it agreed with the Family Justice Court’s finding that the divorce settlement should be set aside on grounds of fraudulent non-disclosure, because it was unlikely that the woman would have admitted that the father of her first child was someone else.

The businessman nullified the settlement because he no longer agreed to the 50-50 split. This meant that both sides would have to return to court to fight for their share of the matrimonial assets.

Past divorce cases involving wealthy and main breadwinners would usually end with them getting more than a half share of the matrimonial assets unless their spouses made exceptional indirect contributions by shouldering the bulk of the effort in taking care of the kids and the household.

If the man succeeds in showing that he deserves more than a half share, the ex-wife will have to return part of the earlier $9.3 million payout.

Prior to the discovery, bad blood was already brewing after the divorce because they traded lawsuits over allegations of how the company was run unfairly against minority shareholders as well as possible pilfering of money.

For instance, the man sought to recover $188,000 his ex-wife had taken from their joint bank account in 2020. He lost the case in the first round but managed to get part of the money back on appeal – the ex-wife was ordered to return about $59,000 as she had taken more than what she was entitled to under the $9.3 million settlement.

When to start counting

To restart the process of splitting the matrimonial assets, the man initiated the current action to ask the High Court to set the date on when to assess the value of their matrimonial assets.

Usually, spouses’ net worth and entitlement would be determined during the time of their divorce, but this case is unusual because the couple did not go through such a process as they had an amicable settlement a decade ago.

The man wanted the court to rule on the date so they could start preparing the necessary documents to show their relevant assets. Having a fixed date would also prevent both sides from staking claims on assets that might not be related to the marriage.

He asked for the date to value their assets to be set on July 10, 2014 – the date of the interim court ruling that ended their marriage. Although the final judgment was given about three months after the settlement deal and other matters were concluded, he said there was no significant difference in the pool of matrimonial assets between those dates.

He also argued that both sides had remarried not long after the divorce, and it would be “prejudicial” to his current wife if assets acquired by him for the benefit of his new family are included in the pool of matrimonial assets.

But his ex-wife argued the determination date should be no earlier than March 2020 because that was when their relationship broke down, and she was forced to stop working at the company.

She tried to strengthen her case by saying they had continued to interact regularly and cordially after their divorce while running the company together as the boss and “madam boss”.

She also listed her work contributions and their messages, claiming that they “still intermingled both their business interests and their family life” until the end of 2019.

But High Court Judge Choo Han Teck noted there was no doubt the marriage had ended in 2014 and both sides had moved on in their lives with their new families.

“The fact that they were able to communicate amicably for the sake of their children and run the company as business partners did not mean that their marital union subsisted,” he added.

Contributions to marriage

Contribution of spouses during their marriage will count when deciding their share of the matrimonial assets, but not after the union has ended even if they may still be working together in the family business.

In this case, the wife said she had continued to work in her ex-husband’s company after the divorce, so her contributions should count towards increasing her share of the assets.

But Justice Choo disagreed, noting that her contributions to the business were made in her capacity as an employee, not as a spouse. So there was no cogent reason to depart from the established practice of valuing assets at the time of the divorce.

The man said that both sides had considered and agreed on the value of the matrimonial assets during the divorce. He pointed out that the value of their assets would have changed over the last decade, and it would not be fair to do a recount as all assets under his name after the divorce would be his entirely.

Justice Choo agreed with the businessman that it would be fair to set the valuation date as July 10, 2014, because that was when the union had ended.

After all, the ex-wife had also admitted in her own case that their divorce was finalised in 2014, so it would be difficult to argue that the man’s assets as at 2019 could constitute “matrimonial assets”.

So even if he had managed his personal assets or his company’s financial resources badly after 2014, he cannot be accused of deliberately reducing the pool of matrimonial assets to spite his ex-wife.

Justice Choo said the date of valuation should not change just because the divorce settlement was nullified and the parties have to go through another session to determine their share.

To hold otherwise would be to allow the ex-wife to take advantage of any growth in the businessman’s assets that was due to his sole efforts after their divorce, he added.

The lesson here is this – just like in any business contract, parties in a divorce settlement should always come clean so that there is no chance for either side to air any dirty laundry in a court hearing.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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