Singaporean Businessman Loses Bid to Reclaim $369k Spent on Ex-girlfriend

A Singaporean businessman has lost a High Court battle to reclaim nearly half a million dollars he spent on his former girlfriend, with a judge ruling the money was given willingly as gifts, not loans.

Chander Agarwal, the CEO of a logistics company, sued Felicia Lee, a former flight attendant, for S$468,000 (approximately $369,000). The couple, who met on a flight in 2019, were in a romantic relationship from September 2022 to December 2023.

Agarwal launched the lawsuit in March 2024 after their relationship soured over his suspicions that she was having an affair. He argued that Lee had requested various “interest-free loans” from him, citing S$206,000 in credit card charges, S$129,000 for overseas trips, S$17,000 to hire a feng shui master for her apartment, and S$20,000 for her life insurance premiums.

Lee firmly denied this, arguing the expenditures were “gifts made out of love and affection.”

Senior Judge Lee Seiu Kin agreed with Lee, noting a complete lack of documentary evidence to support Agarwal’s claims. There was no proof that Lee had ever acknowledged receiving or agreeing to repay any loans.

“The evidence before me clearly shows that the claimant, smitten by the defendant, had showered her with expensive gifts during their relationship,” the judge wrote. He observed that Agarwal was “clearly a man of ample means who has expensive tastes,” while Lee was “not in that league.”

The judge concluded that when the relationship ended, Agarwal “became embittered and was determined to extract a price from her.”

In a striking final note, the judge cited the 17th-century English playwright William Congreve: “Heav’n has no rage, like love to hatred turn’d, nor hell a fury, like a woman scorn’d.”

He then added a modern twist to the centuries-old quote: “This case shows that such emotion is not the sole province of one gender.”

For Agarwal, the ruling is a costly reminder that in the eyes of the law, generosity during a romance is rarely retroactively classified as a debt. When love turns to litigation, the court expects signed agreements, not just regrets.