The Singapore High Court in September 2026 rejected a claim by Chander Agarwal, CEO and managing director of Indian logistics firm TCI Express, to recover S$468,090 he had spent on former girlfriend Felicia Lee during their relationship. The judge ruled that most of the spending — including Hermes, Dior and Prada gifts, overseas trips, and a feng shui master — were gifts, not loans, describing Chander Agarwal as a "smitten" man who became embittered after the break-up.
Senior Judge Lee Seiu Kin dismissed the claim in full on September 9, 2026, along with fallback arguments in misrepresentation, unjust enrichment and constructive trust, and ordered Chander Agarwal to pay Felicia Lee's legal costs. Chander Agarwal had argued that everything he spent after the relationship turned romantic was an interest-free loan — telling the court that "everything became a loan, everything was transactional" once they started dating. The court found no evidence Felicia Lee had ever requested loans or agreed to repay anything.
The numbers were never in dispute — only their meaning. The pair met on a flight in 2019, when Felicia Lee was working as a flight attendant, and the relationship turned romantic in September 2022 before ending in December 2023, after Chander Agarwal suspected infidelity. He sued in March 2024. The S$468,090 (about ₹3.5 crore) comprised roughly S$206,000 in credit card charges, about S$129,000 on overseas trips — including a European tour covering Barcelona, Lisbon and London and a Singapore Airlines Suites Class ticket to New Delhi — S$17,000 paid to a feng shui master for Felicia Lee's flat, and S$30,000 for a Stanford–NUS executive programme. Luxury items included a Louis Vuitton handbag, Prada vouchers and an Apple Hermès watch, plus life insurance premiums and the cost of incorporating her company.
The judge's reasoning cut through the accounting. Chander Agarwal had been showering Felicia Lee with expensive gifts before the relationship even began, undermining the idea that romance flipped a switch from gift to loan. When Felicia Lee once asked how she could repay him, he replied there was no need — he was "not a moneylender." A handwritten document Chander Agarwal produced as a loan agreement was rejected: Felicia Lee denied signing it, and its fixed monthly terms bore no resemblance to the irregular spending. The court also dismissed his claim that the feng shui spending "must have been a loan" because he personally did not believe in the practice, and threw out a misrepresentation argument after evidence showed Chander Agarwal himself had relationships with other women during the same period.
In a literary flourish, the judgment quoted the 1697 play The Mourning Bride on love curdling into hatred — adding that such fury was "not the sole province of one gender." Beyond the courtroom drama, the ruling drew attention in India, where Chander Agarwal heads the listed TCI Express. Its message is now case law: generosity during a relationship does not become a debt when the relationship sours — not without a genuine agreement to repay.