Sisters win lawsuit over brother's fake marriage

Sisters win lawsuit over brother's fake marriage

Two sisters stand to share more than $170,000 from their late brother's Central Provident Fund (CPF) account after proving that his marriage to a Chinese national was a sham.

Soon Chwee Guan - who was unemployed - wed Diao Yanmei, 47, in 2011 after apparently meeting her in an Ang Mo Kio coffee shop.

However, his sisters Soon Ah See, 56, and Soon Ah Choon, 54, did not find out about the marriage until after his death from a stroke aged 52 in August 2013.

They learnt that the money would go to his spouse automatically by law.

However, they believed it was a sham marriage.

Through their lawyer A. Rajandran, they filed a High court injunction to restrain the Board from releasing any money in Mr Soon's CPF account.

It was granted in September 2013 and has been in place since.

According to court documents, Mr Soon did not tell his family about the marriage, despite living with his mother and sister in Bukit Batok.

In his written judgment on Tuesday, Judicial Commissioner Edmund Leow said he accepted the sisters' submission that the defendant and the deceased had not entered into a genuine marriage.

"This was probably done so the defendant (Ms Diao) could bolster her chances of staying on in Singapore and working here," he wrote.

"It is no coincidence that just a little over a week after the marriage, the defendant applied for a work permit."

She was successful and got a job as a spa therapist.

Court documents also said that Mr Soon had told a friend Lee Hock Hoo, 71, that he had entered a sham marriage.

Mr Lee said in a testimony that the arrangement would enable the unemployed Mr Soon to have some money. He would be paid $4,000 by Ms Diao, and $400 every month.

Ms Diao, who also testified, claimed to love Mr Soon but could not say why.

She also claimed they would eat fish - even though Mr Soon did not eat fish and was allergic to seafood.

Ms Diao could not pinpoint the locations they had sex at.

Judge Leow also pointed out that she did not know how many siblings he had, which schools he attended, or which brand of beer he preferred.

 


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