Background
Chander Agarwal, the CEO and managing director of an Indian listed company, sued his former girlfriend, Felicia Lee, after their relationship ended in December 2023. He alleged that she owed him $468,090 in interest-free loans, comprising charges on his credit cards, insurance premiums, travel and shopping expenses, feng shui services, course fees, and alleged cash advances for her Manulife liabilities and a business venture.
Lee denied borrowing the money and said the expenditures were gifts made during the relationship. Agarwal relied principally on a handwritten agreement said to have been signed by Lee, and alternatively alleged fraudulent and statutory misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, and an institutional constructive trust.
The Court’s Holding
Senior Judge Lee Seiu Kin dismissed the action. The evidence overwhelmingly showed that Agarwal intended the disputed sums as gifts, not loans. WhatsApp messages showed him repeatedly offering to pay Lee’s expenses, assuring her that she did not owe him, and encouraging her to use his cards and money. Agarwal could identify no objective evidence that Lee requested loans or agreed to repay them; several claimed amounts were inadequately particularised or unsupported by the documents.
The court gave limited weight to the handwritten agreement. It did not identify the claimed sums, its terms did not fit the alleged transactions, and the circumstances of its production were suspect. It was unsafe to find that Lee had signed it; in any event, a later promissory note signed by Agarwal superseded it. The court also rejected the misrepresentation claims because the alleged representations and reliance were not proved. Since the transfers were gifts rather than conditional benefits based on a joint understanding, unjust enrichment failed, as did the constructive-trust claim.
Key Takeaways
- A donor cannot retrospectively convert a completed gift into a loan after a relationship ends.
- In a dispute between romantic partners, assertions of oral repayment arrangements require persuasive objective evidence, particularly where contemporaneous messages indicate gifts.
- Failure of basis in unjust enrichment requires a joint understanding; a claimant’s unilateral expectation of repayment is insufficient.
Why It Matters
The decision illustrates the evidential difficulty of recasting relationship spending as debt. The court focused on the payer’s intention at the time of transfer and on the parties’ contemporaneous communications, rather than the claimant’s later characterization of the expenditure.
It also confirms that alternative restitutionary and proprietary claims do not rescue an unproven loan claim. Without a joint conditional basis, actionable misrepresentation, or a recognised category of equitable unconscionability, gifts remain gifts.