The High Court threw out a bid by TCI Express chief executive Chander Agarwal to reclaim nearly S$468,090 from his former girlfriend, ruling that the Hermes handbags, Dior splurges and first-class flights were gifts, not loans. In a written judgment delivered on September 9, Senior Judge Lee Seiu Kin dismissed the claim in its entirety, finding no evidence that Felicia Lee had ever agreed to repay a cent of the lavish spending.

The numbers were never in dispute; what they meant was. Agarwal sought to recover about S$206,000 in credit-card charges, approximately S$129,000 spent on overseas trips, S$17,000 paid to a feng shui master for Lee's flat, and S$30,000 for a Stanford-NUS executive programme, along with life-insurance premiums, repayment of a debt to her former employer, the incorporation of her company and shopping on trips to the United States, Hong Kong and Europe. The judge found that Agarwal had failed even to prove he had given Lee two of the claimed sums, including S$50,000 he said was a loan to help her settle a debt owed to a former employer.

Agarwal's central argument was striking in its artificiality: he contended that everything he spent on Lee before their relationship became romantic was a gift, but that once they started dating in September 2022, everything became a loan, everything transactional. During cross-examination he reportedly said as much. He also argued that Lee's acceptance of his offers to pay effectively converted the spending into debt. The court called the position contrary to common sense. The evidence, the judge said, clearly showed that the claimant, smitten by the defendant, had showered her with expensive gifts during their relationship. Unfortunately, when the relationship ended on a sour note, the claimant became embittered and was determined to extract a price from her. The judge even quoted a line from the 1697 play The Mourning Bride about love turning to hatred, noting the emotion was not the sole province of one gender.

The pair had met on a flight in 2019, when Lee was working as a flight attendant; she later moved into roles as an insurance agent and medical sales officer. The romance began in September 2022 and ended in December 2023 after Agarwal suspected Lee of infidelity. Notably, his generosity had begun even before they were a couple: in August 2022 he bought her a Singapore Airlines Suites Class ticket to New Delhi, paid for a European trip covering Barcelona, Lisbon and London, and told her she should not be shy about using his money. The court rejected not only the loan claim but also alternative claims in misrepresentation, unjust enrichment and constructive trust, ordering Agarwal to pay Lee's legal costs. The judgment has been pored over by lawyers across the region as a definitive statement that generosity in love does not become debt in heartbreak.