Smitten CEO spent $468k on girlfriend, sues her to recover money after breakup

SINGAPORE — After breaking up with his girlfriend of more than a year, the chief executive of a listed company sued her to recover $468,090 that he had spent on her during their relationship.

On Sept 9, the High Court dismissed Chander Agarwal’s claim that the various sums of money he spent on his former girlfriend, Felicia Lee, were loans that had to be repaid.

In a written judgment, Senior Judge Lee Seiu Kin ruled that most of the sums were gifts that Agarwal had willingly given to Lee.

These include $206,000 in credit card charges, $129,000 spent on overseas trips, $17,000 to engage a feng shui master for her flat and $30,000 in fees for a Stanford-NUS executive programme.

Agarwal failed to prove that he had given her two other sums, including $50,000 he claimed he lent her to clear a debt to her former employer, the judge said.

The judge added that Agarwal could not point to any evidence showing that the woman had requested the disputed sums as loans or had agreed to repay him.

“The evidence before me clearly shows that the claimant, smitten by the defendant, had showered her with expensive gifts during their relationship,” the judge said.

“Unfortunately, when their relationship ended on a sour note, the claimant became embittered and was determined to extract a price from her.”

The judge quoted the lines from the 1697 play The Mourning Bride: “Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.”

He said: “This case shows that such emotion is not the sole province of one gender.”

Agarwal is the CEO and managing director of TCI Express, an Indian company listed on the National Stock Exchange of India and the Bombay Stock Exchange.

The defendant is a former flight attendant who later worked as an insurance agent and medical sales officer.

They met on a flight in 2019. Agarwal later approached Lee on Facebook, and they started meeting up.

In September 2022, they began a romantic relationship, which ended in December 2023 after he suspected her of infidelity.

He filed the lawsuit in March 2024.

Even before the relationship started, he gave her numerous lavish gifts without expecting repayment.

He once booked a limousine to take her home after dinner, bought her luxury items from brands such as Hermes, Louis Vuitton and Prada, and paid almost all her expenses on a European tour they took together.

In May 2021, when she said on WhatsApp that it had been years since she last took a plane, Agarwal replied: “Soon, soon can fly. I have a first class/suite ticket booked for you already wherever you want to go when it opens. If not, take the private jet then.”

When she messaged him in August 2022 to ask how she could repay him, he replied: “No need. I am not a moneylender.”

In September 2022, he told her she should not be shy about using his money if they were “together” and offered her a monthly budget of $1,500 for taxi, dining and beauty expenses.

In December 2022, he offered her the use of his American Express Centurion Card, telling her in a text message: “You don’t have a budget now. Anything you want.”

Another message said: “And spoil yourself too, please.”

Suspicious circumstances

The judge said: “While it is not uncommon for exchanges between romantic partners to be informal, it is telling that the claimant could not point to, for example, any WhatsApp message where the defendant acknowledged receipt of the loans that she had allegedly requested.”

Agarwal, represented by Mohamed Baiross, presented to the court a handwritten agreement to the court purportedly signed by the woman.

In the document, the woman purportedly stated that the monthly “deposit” of $10,000 to $25,000 she took from Agarwal belonged to him.

The woman, represented by Sunil Singh Panoo, denied having signed or even seen the document before the court proceedings.

The judge said the circumstances in which the agreement was presented were suspect and gave limited weight to a handwriting expert’s opinion that the signature was genuine.

Although Agarwal based his claims purely on the agreement, he made no reference to it in his original statement of claim, which instead stated that he “never insisted that the parties entered into a formal written agreement”.

He referred to the agreement only seven months later, when he filed an amended statement of claim.

The judge also pointed out that the statements in the document were contradicted by the facts.

For instance, the woman did not take $10,000 to $25,000 a month but instead received various sums for different purposes from time to time.

In any event, a subsequent note signed by Agarwal in May 2023, in which he promised that he would never ask for the return of items given to her out of goodwill, superseded any prior agreement, the judge said.

Cross-examined during the trial, Agarwal said that when they started dating, “everything became a loan, everything was transactional”, but “before that, it wasn’t”.

He also said that once she accepted his offers to spend his money, the expenses would automatically become loans.

The judge said the stance taken by Agarwal was contrary to common sense and unsustainable.

He added that Agarwal was likely being evasive when confronted in court with unfavourable evidence, such as his repeated offers to the defendant to spend for her benefit and assurances that she did not need to repay him.

The judge also rejected Agarwal’s argument that the woman induced him to give her the disputed sums by making false representations that they were in a genuine and exclusive relationship and that she would repay him.

The judge said Agarwal’s conduct during the relationship appeared to be a continuation of his relationship style before the couple started dating.

This conclusion was supported by evidence showing that Agarwal had sexual relations with other women while the couple were in a relationship, casting doubt on whether he himself considered their relationship to be genuine and exclusive, the judge added.

This article was first published in The Straits Times . Permission required for reproduction.

新加坡——一家上市公司的首席执行官与交往一年多的女友分手后，起诉她要求追回在恋爱期间为她花费的 468,090 美元。

9 月 9 日，高等法院驳回了 Chander Agarwal 的说法，即他花在前女友 Felicia Lee 身上的各种款项是必须偿还的贷款。

高级法官李秀健在一份书面判决中裁定，大部分款项是阿加瓦尔自愿赠予李的礼物。

其中包括信用卡消费 206,000 美元，海外旅行花费 129,000 美元，聘请风水大师为她的公寓做装饰花费 17,000 美元，以及参加斯坦福-新加坡国立大学高管培训项目的 30,000 美元费用。

法官表示，阿加瓦尔未能证明他曾给过她另外两笔款项，其中包括他声称借给她 5 万美元，用于偿还她欠前雇主的债务。

法官补充说，阿加瓦尔无法提供任何证据表明该女子曾以贷款的形式向他索要争议款项，或者同意偿还他。

法官说：“我面前的证据清楚地表明，原告被被告迷得神魂颠倒，在两人交往期间，她送给被告很多昂贵的礼物。”

“不幸的是，当他们的关系以不愉快的方式结束时，原告变得愤恨不已，并决心向她索要赔偿。”

法官引用了 1697 年戏剧《哀悼的新娘》中的台词：“天堂没有比爱转为恨更可怕的愤怒，地狱也没有比被轻蔑的女人更可怕的狂怒。”

他说：“这个案例表明，这种情感并非某一性别的专属。”

Agarwal 是 TCI Express 的首席执行官兼总经理，该公司是一家在印度国家证券交易所和孟买证券交易所上市的印度公司。

被告曾是一名空乘人员，后来做过保险代理人和医疗销售员。

他们于 2019 年在一次航班上相识。后来，Agarwal 在 Facebook 上联系了 Lee，两人开始见面。

2022 年 9 月，他们开始了恋爱关系，但这段关系在 2023 年 12 月结束，因为他怀疑她不忠。

他于 2024 年 3 月提起诉讼。

甚至在两人关系开始之前，他就送给她许多贵重的礼物，而没有期望任何回报。

他曾预订一辆豪华轿车在晚餐后送她回家，给她买过爱马仕、路易威登和普拉达等品牌的奢侈品，并在他们一起进行的欧洲之旅中几乎支付了她所有的开销。

2021年5月，当她在WhatsApp上说自己已经好几年没坐过飞机时，阿加瓦尔回复说：“很快，很快就能飞了。我已经为你预订了头等舱/套房机票，你想去哪儿都行，只要飞机重新开放。如果飞机不开，那就坐私人飞机吧。”

2022 年 8 月，当她发信息询问如何还钱时，他回复说：“不用了。我不是放高利贷的。”

2022 年 9 月，他告诉她，如果他们“在一起”，她就不应该不好意思用他的钱，并给她每月 1500 美元的预算，用于出租车、餐饮和美容费用。

2022 年 12 月，他向她提供使用他的美国运通百夫长卡，并在短信中告诉她：“你现在没有预算限制。你想要什么都可以。”

另一条信息写道：“也请好好犒劳一下自己。”

可疑情况

法官表示：“虽然情侣之间的交流非正式并不罕见，但值得注意的是，原告无法指出被告是否在 WhatsApp 消息中确认收到了她声称请求的贷款。”

阿加瓦尔的代理律师穆罕默德·拜罗斯向法庭提交了一份据称由该女子签署的手写协议。

据称，该女子在文件中表示，她从阿加瓦尔那里每月领取的 10,000 至 25,000 美元“存款”属于他。

该女子由 Sunil Singh Panoo 代理，否认在法庭审理前签署过甚至见过该文件。

法官表示，该协议的提交情况令人怀疑，并且对笔迹专家关于签名真实性的意见给予了有限的重视。

尽管阿加瓦尔完全依据该协议提出索赔，但他在最初的索赔声明中并未提及该协议，而是表示他“从未坚持要求双方签订正式的书面协议”。

七个月后，当他提交修改后的索赔声明时，才提到了该协议。

法官还指出，文件中的陈述与事实不符。

例如，该女子并非每月领取 10,000 至 25,000 美元，而是不时收到用于不同用途的各种款项。

无论如何，法官表示，阿加瓦尔于 2023 年 5 月签署的一份后续便条取代了任何先前的协议，他在便条中承诺永远不会要求归还出于善意赠送给她的物品。

在庭审中接受交叉询问时，阿加瓦尔表示，当他们开始约会时，“一切都变成了借贷，一切都变成了交易”，但“在此之前，并非如此”。

他还说，一旦她接受了他让她花他钱的提议，这些开支就会自动变成贷款。

法官表示，阿加瓦尔采取的立场违背常理，站不住脚。

他还补充说，当法庭上出现对被告不利的证据时，阿加瓦尔很可能是在回避问题，例如他多次向被告提出要为她花钱，并保证她不需要偿还他。

法官还驳回了阿加瓦尔的论点，即该女子通过虚假陈述诱使他向她支付争议款项，谎称他们之间存在真实且排他的关系，并且她会偿还他。

法官表示，阿加瓦尔在恋爱关系中的行为似乎延续了他与这对情侣开始交往之前的恋爱方式。

法官补充说，有证据表明，阿加瓦尔在与这对夫妇交往期间与其他女性发生了性关系，这支持了上述结论，也让人怀疑他本人是否认为他们的关系是真诚和排他的。

本文最初发表于《海峡时报》。转载需获得许可。