In divorce proceedings, a party to a marriage may seek to satisfy the court that the marriage has irretrievably broken down by proving, inter alia, that the other party has committed adultery. But what is the standard of proof for adultery? In WQX v WQW, the General Division of the High Court (Family Division) found that the wife had proved beyond reasonable doubt that the husband had committed adultery, but it queried whether the criminal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt for adultery, which applied in the past, is still warranted today. It is submitted that there are indeed strong arguments in favour of lowering the standard of proof for adultery from the criminal standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt to the civil standard of proof on a balance of probabilities.

It has been the position for quite some time in English jurisprudence that an agreement_x000D_ to agree and an agreement to negotiate are invalid and unenforceable. This was the_x000D_ position established in Walford v. Miles2 and Courtney & Fairbairn Ltd. V. Tolaini Brothers (Hotels) Ltd.3 The rationale for this was that such agreements were too uncertain to be enforceable. This is certainly true for an agreement to agree; one could not accurately predict whether an agreement is possible in every case especially when there may be structural constraints to the factual matrix that make an agreement impossible.

In VTL v VTM [2021] SGHCF 30 ("VTL v VTM"), the Singapore High Court had the opportunity to consider the application of the rarely-invoked mutual wills doctrine. The court gave effect to the mutual wills by holding that a subsequent will was invalid and revoking the grant of probate that had been obtained by the executors of that subsequent will. The court in so doing departed from the orthodox understanding that a mutual will takes effect by imposing a constructive trust over the relevant property, rather than by rendering a subsequent will invalid. This comment reviews the law on mutual wills in Singapore and elsewhere, and suggests that VTL v VTM was a missed opportunity to unpack some of the thorny issues that have yet to be resolved in relation to the doctrine.

The recent U.K. Supreme Court decision in Marley v. Rawlings, concerning the rectification of a will pursuant to English legislation, raises two points of reflection for Singapore law. These points arise not from the ratio of the case, which was decided on a narrow legislative basis, but from the well-considered obiter dicta contained in Lord Neuberger's judgment.