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15 SAcLJ Matrimonial Assets and the 3 rd Party 229
thus indicating that the value of the shares would not affect the Family
Court’s jurisdiction to deal with the same. The Family Court’s orders
were upheld on appeal to the High Court. In Lam Siew Lan, supra, the
Family Court found that shares in a company (worth $1,668,800) which
were registered in the names of the respondent husband’s mistress and
two illegitimate children actually belonged to the husband, and that the
wife should be given 20% of the value of these shares. This order was
not varied on appeal. In the case of Ong Tong Liang v Lim Siew Cheng
Jeanette 20 the Family Court found it suspicious that the respondent
husband had transferred 80% of a certain property (the Ivory Heights
apartment) to his mother in October 1997, after he filed a divorce
petition in July 1997. The court held that this was a sham transaction,
designed to keep assets out of the reach of his family. The full value of
this asset (at its open market price of $550,000) was included in the pool
of matrimonial assets available for division. The wife was awarded a
50% share of the total pool of matrimonial assets (worth $1,440,400).
The court ordered that the husband pay the wife the sum of $330,000,
being the remainder of her share of the matrimonial assets (the
matrimonial home (worth $390,400) was already in the wife’s name.) On
appeal, the High Court varied the order made by the Family Court by
reducing the sum of $330,000 to $260,895. 21 However, no comment was
made by the High Court that the Family Court had no jurisdiction to deal
with the 3 rd party issue in this case.
2.3 Side-stepping the jurisdictional question
20 The question of whether the court hearing the ancillary matters
has the jurisdiction to deal with 3 rd party issues can be avoided entirely,
however, if the court does not have to decide what the 3 rd party’s share in
the matrimonial asset is.
2.3.1 By agreement
21 If parties come to an agreement on what constitutes the
matrimonial asset, the court will not have to make a decision as to the 3 rd
party’s share of the matrimonial asset before deciding what constitutes
the matrimonial asset. 22 For example, in the case of Tan Hock Soon v
20
21
22
unreported, Divorce Petition No 2208 of 1997
No judgment was written by the High Court for this case, nor was an oral judgment
given.
All parties must be a party to the agreement, however, as no consent judgment or
order has any operation against a party not shown to have consented; The Doctrine of
Res Judicata, Spencer Bower, Turner and Handley (3 rd Ed, 1996), at p. 23, para 41