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

He no longer agrees with 50-50 division of matrimonial assets, says he deserves more than half

- Tan Ooi Boon Invest Editor

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 firstborn 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.

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 firstborn, 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.