The duty of contracting parties to cooperate in the performance of commercial contracts is at once both intuitive, and utterly foreign. On the one hand, all commercial relationships require a degree of trust, and a party may reasonably expect that the other is committed to working together to carry out their bargain. This applies a fortiori in international commerce, where distance and unfamiliarity between parties make it necessary to trust the other to uphold their contractual promises. Yet, it may be argued that such expectations are unrealistic since all of commerce is motivated by self-interest. Despite this tension, it will be argued that the duty to cooperate is fundamental to international commercial contracts. This arises from the inherent nature of such contractual relationships, and is reflected in the increasing recognition of this duty in national legislation and transnational principles.
Defining the Jurisdiction of Family Justice Courts: UDA v UDB and another [2018] SGCA 20
In a divorce, multiple parties – including the spouses and third parties – may claim ownership of an alleged matrimonial asset. In UDA v UDB and another [2018] SCGA 20, the Court of Appeal (“CA”) held that family justice courts, which hear disputes over matrimonial assets, had the jurisdiction (i.e. authority to hear and determine a dispute brought before it) to decide only the claims of the divorcing spouses. They did not have the jurisdiction to decide claims by a third party (i.e. anyone other than the divorcing spouses) over property which was alleged by one or both spouses to be a matrimonial asset. Instead, such third party claims had to be determined in separate legal proceedings.
Busting Myths: Understanding Prosecutorial Discretion
The December 2017 decision to charge a couple who tortured their flatmate, Annie Ee, with the offence of “voluntarily causing grievous hurt”, as opposed to murder, sparked controversy in Singapore. An online petition seeking harsher punishments for the couple, continuing even after sentencing by the courts, garnered more than 39,000 signatories by April 2018. The case suggests some public confusion about prosecutorial discretion and how it works. This article attempts to explain the operation of prosecutorial discretion and to debunk certain common myths.
The Impact of TFL Management v Lloyds Bank and Relfo v Varsani on Requirements of Enrichment and “At the Claimant’s Expense”
Under the Battersea framework, it has been accepted that the claimant must establish that there is a connection or nexus between the (a) receipt of an enrichment by the defendant and (b) the claimant’s loss, so as to justify the unjust enrichment claim against the defendant. However, the question of whether the defendant has been enriched or the enrichment was at the claimant’s expense, is complicated, especially where it appears the enrichment was no more than an incidental benefit, or the defendant has received the enrichment only indirectly from the claimant.
Singapore Patent Protection – Rejecting the Doctrine of Equivalents: Lee Tat Cheng v Maka GPS Technologies Pte Ltd [2018] SGCA 18
In the recent case of Lee Tat Cheng v Maka GPS Technologies Pte Ltd [2018] SGCA 18, the Court of Appeal (“CA”) addressed an issue concerning patent construction: whether Singapore should adopt the approach taken by the UK Supreme Court in Actavis UK Limited v Eli Lilly and Company [2017] UKSC 48 (“Actavis”), which reformulated the UK approach to patent construction and infringement.
Possibility of Establishing a Fact-Finding Commission for the Rohingya Crisis
While the recent attacks against the Rohingya (“Rohingya Crisis”) were most certainly conducted by the Myanmar Army, the Government (“Government”) – under the leadership of Aung San Suu Kyi (“Aung”) – has dismissed the Rohingya as Bengali illegals, deemed the crisis as self-inflicted, and characterised media coverage as an “iceberg of misinformation”. When the truth of events is called into question before the more difficult question of liability is engaged, it becomes, in the authors' opinion, even more pressing for a comprehensive account of the conflict to be produced. This is not only for loftier reconciliation efforts but to achieve consensus on themes like dignity and the need to eschew violence.
Unpacking the Courier Exception in the Misuse of Drugs Act: Zainudin bin Mohamed v Public Prosecutor [2018] SGCA 8
When is a drug trafficker who claims to be a mere ‘courier’ not merely a ‘courier’? The Court of Appeal addressed this question in Zainudin bin Mohamed v Public Prosecutor [2018] SGCA 8. The issue was whether a drug trafficker who divided and repacked drugs was merely “transporting, sending or delivering a controlled drug” under s 33B(2)(a)(iii) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 2008 Rev Ed) (“MDA”), and hence eligible for discretionary life imprisonment (rather than the death penalty) under this so-called “courier exception”.
Getting to the Root of the Problem: Written Representations to the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods
The phenomenon of the spread of deliberate falsehoods has been exacerbated in the current day and age with the usage of technology. An examination of this issue shows that that the motivations and reasons for spreading such falsehoods have not changed. Instead, the primary mischief lies in the near instantaneous dissemination and ease of access via internet intermediaries. Despite this, there is a gap in the regulatory tools available to deal with this mischief. The solution hence should lie in imposing some sort of liability on internet intermediaries to remove deliberate falsehoods. Nevertheless, it is crucial that such intermediary liability must be carefully calibrated to minimize restrictions on the right to freedom of expression.
A Swiss and a Miss: The Future of Swiss-style Patents in Singapore
In the recently-decided case of Warner-Lambert Company LLC v Novartis (Singapore) Pte Ltd[2017] SGCA 45, the Court of Appeal (“CA”) addressed a number of novel issues in Singapore patent law. The dispute between the two pharmaceutical companies was based on Novartis’ potential infringement of Warner-Lambert’s patent. This patent (filed in 1997) claimed a monopoly over the use of a substance, pregabalin, for the treatment of pain (the “Patent”).
Singapore’s approach towards adopting the multi-factorial approach in insolvency proceedings
In cross-border insolvency, there are two contrasting approaches. On the one hand, there is the territorial approach, focused primarily on the interest of the local creditors. On the other, there is the universal approach, where one court leads the administration of the insolvency proceedings, and other courts cooperate with the main action. For the universal approach, the centre of main interest (“COMI”) test is pivotal to determining whether the court in question has the authority to collect and deal with all assets of the debtor. In Singapore, the universal approach has been adopted. Singapore’s position is that its courts retain the inherent discretion to render assistance to foreign winding-up proceedings where appropriate.
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