SINGAPORE – Instead of transferring $6,650 to fintech platform Wise, James Jonathan accidentally sent the money to his ex-wife Adel Ng because he had saved her in his contact list as “Wife”.
What followed was a six-month legal dispute that involved a police report, an unsuccessful application to strike out the man’s claim and allegations of misconduct against his lawyers.
The ex-wife has now been ordered to pay $6,500 in legal costs after a magistrate’s court found that her conduct was “highly unreasonable” and that she had unnecessarily prolonged the dispute.
In a judgment released on Sept 7, Deputy Registrar Mark Lim said the case could have been resolved immediately after the mistaken transfer.
Instead, the $6,650 ended up with the police and in court.
The former couple had divorced in 2021 but remained in contact over matters, including access to their child.
After Jonathan mistakenly transferred the money to Ng on Dec 7, 2025, he sent her at least 10 e-mails between Dec 7 and Dec 15, asking her to return the money.
She did not reply.
It was only after the man sent a letter of demand through his lawyers on Dec 17 that she responded through her lawyers.
But rather than simply returning the money, the woman on Dec 25 claimed that she was concerned that she was a victim of a possible scam and asked for extensive information, including the man’s identity number, a copy of an identity document, the source of the money, why the transfer had been made in error and why it was urgent that the money be returned.
She asked him to indemnify her against “any and all liabilities and expenses” arising from her returning the money.
The next day, Dec 26, Ng deposited the $6,650 with the Singapore Police Force.
In her police report, she said she wanted to return the money “under cover of this police report” to avoid any misunderstanding or involvement with money from a questionable source or “bad actors (e.g., scammers and money launderers)”.
She said she believed the police were the proper authority to determine whether the claim for the money was legitimate.
On Dec 30, Jonathan sued Ng to seek the return of the $6,650.
In her defence, the woman described herself as a “passive recipient” of money from an “unknown and unverifiable source” and said she believed there was a real possibility that she was receiving scam messages.
But the court was unconvinced.
“Insofar as the defendant justifies her conduct by claiming that she was concerned that she was ‘confronted with a possible scam’, this beggars belief,” said the deputy registrar.
The two had previously corresponded by e-mail using the same addresses, the court noted. If she had any genuine concern about whether the e-mails were really from her former husband, nothing would have stopped her from checking with him directly.
“This is not a case of a complete stranger seeking the return of monies wrongly transferred,” said the deputy registrar.
The court also found that her requests for information on Dec 25 did not appear to be a genuine attempt to establish the man’s identity.
Rather, they appear calculated to vex her ex-husband, the deputy registrar said.
The requests were excessive, including demands for the source of the money, the reasons for the error, an identity document and wide indemnities.
More importantly, the woman did not appear to have genuinely been waiting for a response.
She made her police report and deposited the money with the police the very next day, without giving the man a reasonable opportunity to respond.
“It also bears noting that the request was made to the (ex-husband’s) solicitors on Christmas Day, when they could not reasonably have been expected to be working,” said the deputy registrar.
The dispute continued after the lawsuit was filed.
In May 2026, the woman applied to the court to strike out the man’s claim for the return of the money. The court described the application as “ill-conceived and without merit”, noting that she had failed to identify any specific ground for striking out the claim.
The deputy registrar said it appeared she had “retaliated” after the man filed his own application to strike out her defence.
She also made what the court described as “grave allegations” against the man and his lawyers, claiming that his lawyer had breached an undertaking to file a supplementary affidavit before a deadline and that the man had breached court directions to do the same.
The allegations prompted the court to call an in-person hearing at short notice, after which it found her allegations to be without merit.
The woman apologised “unreservedly” to the court and the man’s lawyer over the allegation concerning the solicitor.
The former couple eventually agreed to settle the substantive dispute in June, leaving only the issue of legal costs.
The police later confirmed that the $6,650 had been returned to the man on June 26.
In deciding the costs, Lim said Ng’s conduct before and after the lawsuit had been unreasonable, causing the action and unnecessarily prolonging it.
The deputy registrar also rejected her argument that the lawsuit was unnecessary, as she had already deposited the money with the police.
There was no legal authority to support the argument that depositing money with the police was an absolute defence to a civil claim, the court said.
The court also rejected her argument that she had made genuine efforts to settle the dispute.
One settlement letter accused the man of bringing the proceedings for an improper motive and of abusing the court process.
Another proposed resolving the case without costs while also saying that the woman might seek to recover her own costs.
And one day after she sent a draft agreement that was close to the eventual settlement, she made the allegations against the man and his lawyers.
“Taken in the round, the court finds that the defendant’s conduct was highly unreasonable,” said the deputy registrar.
The deputy registrar said the former husband was “understandably aggrieved” that a mistaken transfer to his ex-wife, which could have been remedied immediately, had instead escalated into a lawsuit lasting well over half a year.
The court ordered the woman to pay $6,500 in costs, plus GST. The total amount, $7,085, exceeded the original $6,650 that had triggered the dispute.
The case was a reminder that parties who fail to act reasonably could face “serious consequences”, including significant costs orders, the judge said.
