I. INTRODUCTION

This is an exceedingly difficult case concerning issues of ancilliary reliefs sought by the petitioner wife from the respondent husband both of whom have respectively attained more than half a century in terms of age, and who have through thick and thin shared some 34 years of married life, which would otherwise have been an excellent record of happy and holy matrimony but for the facts and

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circumstances which I now have the formidable duty of unfolding.

For brevity, convenience and ease of reference, the parties shall be referred to hereinafter as wife and husband respectively.

II. WIFE'S APPLICATION

This is an application by the wife against the husband for the following ancilliary reliefs :

1. maintenance of RM 15,000.00 a month

commencing from November 1998;

2. equal division of all the matrimonial

properties registered under L.P.I.(M) Sdn

Bhd ("L.P.I.(M)"), Sathyam Holding Sdn

Bhd ("Sathyam Holding") and also under

the husband's name and all the

1.

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properties and shares held in the name of Lai Company Sdn Bhd ("Lai Company"), Tan Yew Lai & Sons Sdn Bhd ("Tan Yew Lai & Sons"), Unicolour Printing Ink Manufacturing Sdn Bhd (UPI Manufacturing"), and all other companies incorporated during subsistence of the marriage;

3. division of all the shares acquired during

the marriage including the Margin

Account Facility (A/C No. 001-201-

003022-7)withArab-Malaysian

Securities Sdn Bhd and traded shares in

the various counters therein;

4. division of all monies held in the banks

during the marriage;

5. costs; and

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4 6. further and other reliefs.

The hearing of this application had proceeded by way of protracted evidence adduced from numerous witnesses called by both the wife and the husband respectively.

III. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

1. The Marriage

The parties were married according to Chinese traditional rites on 20 January 1966. The marriage was subsequently registered on 26 April 1968 at the Registry of Civil Marriages in Kuala Lumpur. They were blessed with three children viz. two daughters Tan Mooi Heong on 20 October 1966 and Tan Mooi Lien on 5 November 1967 and a son Tan Teck Joo on 17 November 1969. Their second daughter Moi Lien who was a spastic child passed away on 24 September 1997.

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The parties have had a considerable period of happy marriage and their last matrimonial home was a bungalow house at No. 5 Jalan Bukit Tinggi, Taman Dato Tan Yew Lai, Kuala Lumpur ("Bungalow No. 5").

The husband is one of the 22 children of the late Dato Tan Yew Lai who during his life time was an eminently successful property developer. Matrimonial disputes developed subsequently, in October or November 1998, when the wife left Bungalow No. 5 after 34 years of marriage.

The husband had during the marriage given the wife RM2,000 a month for the household and her personal expenses.

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On 29 July 1999, the Marriage Tribunal issued a certificate confirming that the parties could not be reconciled, the marriage having irretrievably broken down, as a result of which the wife filed a petition for, inter alia, judicial separation, while the husband cross-petitioned for divorce.

By consent of the parties, decree nisi was granted by me on 16 August 2000, which was made absolute three months later.

2. Shareholdings

The parties' shareholdings in companies L.P.I.(M) and Sathyam Holding are as follows :

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L.P.I.(M)

Wife119,875 shares (24.24%)

Husband274,625 shares (55.53%)

Their two surviving children are the other shareholders.

Sathyam Holding

Wife12,001 shares (30%)

Husband28,001 shares (70%)

Both these companies had never paid dividends to the shareholders.

The wife had never worked during the marriage, being a full time housewife and homemaker, and had never put in any money in these two companies, the entire capital being from the husband.

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3. First matrimonial home and business

The parties' first matrimonial home in 1966 was a double-storey shoplot at No. 172 Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur ("shoplot No. 172"), whe