Law. Faith. Justice. Community. Culture.
In January 2017, Parliament passed the Securities and Futures (Amendment) Act 2017 which sought to make changes to the Securities and Futures Act (SFA) administered by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
It has come into force on 8 October 2018.
Key changes are as follows.
Continue reading “Legislative Update: Securities and Futures (Amendment) Act 2017”
The Commissioner of Charities (COC) released in April 2017 a new Code of Conduct which will take effect 1 January 2018 onwards. Here are some key pointers from a COC sharing session regarding the new Code.
Continue reading “Commissioner of Charities (COC) New Code of Conduct”
Today, while I was at a gathering of Christian ministry people involved in young adults ministry, something struck me to wonder how old the apostles were when they first followed Jesus. A quick Google search gave me surprising results. Two sources suggest that the apostles were likely in their 20s or younger (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3136128?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents; http://bibleq.net/answer/4801/).
The apostles were teenagers, while Jesus was about 30 years old.
Boy, that blew my mind. Not least because I have been so influenced by the mental pictures of the apostles as bearded old men. Also because I realised how the apostles were youths who were discipled by Jesus, and who then led the early Church in their early adulthood.
It also then struck me that as I was soon reaching the age that Jesus commenced His public ministry, I desired to follow Jesus’ footsteps in discipling young ones. I have been occasionally praying for disciples but have not presently so found 12. No I figure I can’t manage 12. So just a few would do.
Whatever it is, it struck me how we assume many things about age. Perhaps especially so in the cultural context of the world. But in God’s Kingdom, it is not age that matters but faith, which is tied to humility.
We need to disciple our young, like how Jesus discipled His young teenage apostles. It is they who will carry the message of the Kingdom of God in a spectacular way to a watching world.
(7-10 minute read)
A Singaporean Christian was on his way for a short-term mission trip to a village outside Phnom Penh. He saw an injured man lying along the road. He thought to himself, if I can preach the gospel to him after I help this man, then I will go help this man. As he approached the injured man, someone else came and tended to the man. So the Singaporean stopped in his track, and continued on his way to his short-term mission trip. Was this Christian a Good Samaritan?
No? But that’s what many Singapore Christians and churches do in missions–a false view of missions which we inherited unthinkingly.
Continue reading “Have We Disintegrated Mission and the Gospel? “
Law Society of Singapore v Sum Chong Mun [2017] SGHC 80
Significance: High Court of Three Judges reprimands two lawyers with regard to one of them signing as certificate issuer / witness of a lasting power of attorney (LPA) without actually witnessing the donor signing the document.
Intas Pharmaceuticals Ltd v DealStreetAsia Pte Ltd [2017] SGHC 74
Significance: Singapore High Court allows pre-action interrogatories and pre-action discovery under Order 26A and Order 24 of the Rules of Court. The Court found that it was just and necessary in all the circumstances to grant the pre-action disclosure sought by the plaintiff; it was held to be entitled to a disclosure of facts sufficient to give it a reasonable basis upon which to form a view on whether it can plead a viable case (in this case of malicious falsehood). However, the Court disallowed pre-actiion interrogatories and discovery for information regarding certain third parties who were alleged sources of information regarding an allegedly maliciously false news article on a website. The Court found that there was insufficient basis for a real possibility that the plaintiff would bring a claim against these third parties in Singapore for malicious falsehood (a Singapore nexus being required).
Significance: Singapore High Court held that former director, a aesthetic doctor, breached obligations of confidentiality and conspired with intent to injure the former company (a medical clinic) by unlawful means. The Court held that the damages payable would be the loss computed based on the profits to the new company/clinic made from the diversion of patients and expedited by the use of the confidential information. The Court made a fair and reasonable estimate that the diversion of patients would have taken place within 6 months without the use of the confidential information, and so computed the loss based on such timeline.
Wee Shuo Woon v HT S.R. L. [2017] SGCA 23
Significance: The Court of Appeal holds that confidential and privileged information does not lose its confidential nature through being released on the Internet from hacking.
In TNL v TNK [2017] SGCA 15, the Court of Appeal held that the structured approach towards the division of matrimonial assets set out in ANJ v ANK [2015] 4 SLR 1043 (“the ANJ approach”) should not be applied to marriages where one spouse was the sole income earner and the other played the role of homemaker (“Single-Income Marriages”).
The ANJ approach tended to unduly favour the working spouse over the non-working spouse. This was because financial contributions were given recognition under both the first and second steps of the ANJ approach. On the other side of the equation, this meant that the non-working spouse was, in this sense, doubly (and severely) disadvantaged.
Generally, a 50:50 division of the matrimonial assets is applied to long Single-Income Marriages unless there are facts which warranted a different division.
On the issue of costs of the appeal, the Court of Appeal made no order as to costs as this was a cross-appeal situation in which both parties had been partially successful. The Court of Appeal noted that in the context of matrimonial appeals, there was a clear interest in encouraging the parties to move on to face the future instead of re-fighting old battles. Therefore, generally, appeals would not be sympathetically received where the result was a potential adjustment of the sums awarded below that worked out to less than ten% thereof. Even where such appeals were allowed because the court had established that there was an error of principle, costs might be awarded against the successful party if the court was satisfied that the appeal was a disproportionate imposition on the unsuccessful party.
The Court of Appeal also observed that regardless of the approach our courts had taken in the past, unsuccessful appellants in matrimonial appeals in the future should expect to have costs awarded against them. This remained subject, of course, to the overall justice of the case. Additionally, costs might also be awarded on an issues basis against a nit-picking appellant who raised unmeritorious issues on appeal.
From Supreme Court Note: TNL v TNK [2017] SGCA 15 (division of matrimonial assets, costs in matrimonial appeals) (4 April 2017).