The situation
Our client, a Singaporean national, had been married for fourteen years to a Chinese businessman who owned most of a Shenzhen electronics trading company. She had stepped back from her own career to raise their two children. When he asked for a divorce, he claimed the business was struggling, that the family's savings had been spent and that he owed a friend RMB 1.5 million. She did not believe him, but had no access to the company's accounts.
Under the Civil Code, a spouse who conceals, transfers or dissipates community property, or fabricates debts, may receive a smaller share or none at all when property is divided. The challenge is always proof.
What we did
- Mapped the known assets first: the family home, two cars, bank accounts in both names and the husband's shareholding, using public company records and the documents our client already had at home.
- Applied to the court for evidence investigation. Once proceedings were filed, we asked the court to obtain bank statements for the husband's personal accounts and the company's accounts for the previous three years, which a party cannot easily obtain on their own.
- Forensic review. Our senior auditor analysed the statements alongside the company's filed accounts. He found a series of transfers, totalling about RMB 3.8 million, from the husband's accounts to his sister and to a newly formed company controlled by a cousin, all within the eighteen months before he asked for a divorce.
- Tested the "loan". The claimed RMB 1.5 million debt had no bank trail, no commercial purpose and a loan note signed weeks before the divorce petition. We challenged it as a fabricated marital debt.
- Kept the children out of the conflict, agreeing a custody arrangement early so the property dispute did not spill over into their lives.
The outcome
The court found that the transfers had been made to conceal community property and did not accept the claimed loan as a joint debt. In dividing the property, it treated the RMB 3.8 million as community funds and awarded our client a clearly larger share of the total, together with the family home, subject to a balancing payment. Custody of the children was confirmed as agreed. The case took about eleven months, including one appeal by the husband, which was dismissed.
Results depend on the specific facts of each matter; past outcomes do not guarantee similar results.