A pair of retired former state-owned enterprise executives and public servants from the mainland, who have been retired for nearly 20 years, are in a legal battle over property division issues following their divorce, unexpectedly revealing assets nearing one billion yuan. Both parties are accused of claiming and mutually acknowledging property far exceeding their normal income levels, and neither can provide a reasonable explanation.
Recently, a lawyer released a divorce dispute case judgment published on the Chinese Judgment Document Network.
According to a report from “China News Weekly,” on June 3, a “Civil Judgment” issued by the Putuo District Court in Shanghai on September 22, 2023, was found.
The plaintiff in the case is Wang, born in 1954 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province; the defendant is Zhang, born in 1956 in Putuo District, Shanghai. The judgment shows that Wang and Zhang married in 1976 and reached a divorce agreement in 2007. Sixteen years later, Wang filed a lawsuit claiming that the couple did not actually divide the marital property at the time of divorce and requested the division of 14 properties under their names, involving an amount of 98.7 million yuan.
During the court proceedings, both parties presented a large number of clues about the assets held by the other party, including tens of millions in loans, tens of millions in stock return funds, coal agency fee income, and stock investments, totaling over a billion yuan.
The court deemed that these property amounts were exceptionally large and significantly inconsistent with the normal income levels of the two individuals given their public sector and state-owned enterprise backgrounds.
The judgment shows that Wang had long served in the railway system and state-owned enterprises, retiring in 2016 from the State Grid Group at the deputy bureau level; while Zhang had served as a police officer in the public security system and later transferred to work in Shanghai but did not work, and is also retired.
The court held that based on the professional backgrounds of the two individuals and their publicly known sources of income, it is difficult to reasonably explain the process of how such large amount of assets were accumulated.
According to relevant regulations, the plaintiff Wang’s lawsuit was dismissed.
The incident sparked heated discussions and trended on Weibo.
“zhtttyzhttty” said: This is actually the reason why everyone is striving so hard to pass the civil service exam. Did you really think it was just for a secure job?
“orlane” said: Now there’s no need to fight over it, all embezzled money must be confiscated, such a large amount should not get off lightly…
“Internal Explosion” said: Divorce to end up in prison.
“Li霸王兔兔” said: If you don’t let me live well, don’t expect to live well either – is this what this couple means?