Category: Law

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Legislative Update: Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act Amendment

Singapore Law; Legal; Lawyer

Significance

The Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity (Amendment) Bill was introduced in the Singapore Parliament on 9 March 2017. The Bill seeks to amend the Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act (Cap. 50A) to introduce new criminal offences on computer offences and cybercrimes. This is especially pertinent given the rising number and extent of cybercrimes today. Just last month (February 2017), the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) system was hacked into and the personal data of many SAF service personnel were stolen: see reports on Today Online, Channel NewsAsia, Straits Times. Do note that the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) does not apply to MINDEF as it is a public body.

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Case Update: Intellectual Property Office of Singapore Case Summary: Bigfoot Internet Ventures Pte Ltd v Apple Inc. [2017] SGIPOS 4 – trade mark revocation dispute involving online post-sale upgrades and software updates

Singapore Law; Legal; Lawyer

Significance: the Registrar of Trade Marks considered evidence of online post-sale upgrades and software updates to determine that the “Sherlock” trade mark registered by Apple Inc. was not put to genuine use during the relevant 5-year period after the “Sherlock” search tool and trade mark was phased out.

Apple Inc. needed to provide sufficient evidence to persuade the Registrar that the “Sherlock” trade mark was used within the relevant 5-year period, notwithstanding indications that the “Sherlock” search tool in Mac OS had been phased out. Thus, because there was no evidence that there were downloads of the online updates by Singapore users in the relevant 5-year period, the Registrar was not persuaded that the “Sherlock” trade mark was put to genuine use during that time. The Registrar thus granted the application for revocation of the trade mark as at date of the application.

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Case Update: Goh Lay Khim and others v Isabel Redrup Agency Pte Ltd [2017] SGCA 11 – defamation

Significance

Five-member Singapore Court of Appeal considered the law on absolute privilege, qualified privilege, in the context of defamation made in the form of complaints to law enforcement or prosecuting authorities e.g. police and regulatory bodies. The Court of Appeal laid down the law that gratuitous complaints to law enforcement or prosecuting authorities, should only be protected by qualified privilege, which can be defeated by malice,  and not absolute privilege: see [77]-[78].

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Case Update: Ong Ghee Soon Kevin V Ho Yong Chong [2016] SGHC 277 – Choice of Law and Non-Contractual Obligations

Singapore Law; Legal; Lawyer

Significance: the Singapore High Court (coram: Belinda Ang J) commented obiter dicta on the approach which the Singapore courts will likely take on the applicable law in determining non-contractual obligations e.g. tortious liability and the conflict of laws doctrine renvoi, i.e. whether the reference to a foreign law includes the foreign law’s choice of law rules or not.

In sum, the Court opined that there is large support for the view that the applicable law be the contractually chosen law, which would govern contractual obligations. This approach gives weight to the party’s autonomy in their contractual choice.

As regards renvoi, the Court opined that a case-by-case approach to deciding the issue is uncertain. As for contract-related matters, the approach would likely be that reference to a foreign law only includes the domestic law of the foreign law and not also the choice of law rules. (If the reference includes the foreign choice of law rule, there could be a double renvoi where the choice of law might point to a third set of laws or back to Singapore law).

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Letters of the Law: a letter to my 19-year-old self

Had the privilege to participate in this meaningful initiative by some law students. I hope my juniors at their crossroads will be at least a little aided by this reflection, a letter addressed to my 19-year-old self who just resigned himself to accepting NUS Law.

http://www.lettersofthelaw.org/read-a…/ronald-jj-wong-lawyer

“Dear Ronald,

It may be rough for you right now, I know. You are struggling with intellectual skepticism of just about everything. There’s a gnawing void in your heart and soul. You messed up your application to Oxford. You have neither the funds nor a scholarship to go to any of the U.S. colleges offered to you. Your fanciful idea of becoming an investment banker and earning heaps of money so you can retire early seems out of reach. And you might feel disappointed about having to take up the offer from NUS Law. Everything doesn’t make sense to you now.

Believe me. Those things are some of the best things that will happen to you. Because it is in the ashes of those broken ambitions and the intellectual and emotional vacuum of fallen mental frameworks and fractured relationships that you will soon find purpose, meaning and community.

You will finally encounter in a metaphysical way the one through whom everything will become clear. You will find enjoyment not just in studying the law but also in the justice that undergirds it. You will experience a holy dissatisfaction with the conception of justice, or injustice, you will witness. And you will dig in ancient places for the justice which satisfies. Through that, you will find purpose and significance in the one who out of justice and mercy redeems you from the injustice you are complicit in, who calls you to pursue justice and mercy among those who are often left at the margins. This will be better than money or status or whatever idea of the good life you think you could have with your silly fanciful ambitions.

Don’t fuss about grades. Instead, work hard to receive a proper education. Learn as much as you can to be a good lawyer. And when it is time, you will have to make a difficult decision, a leap of faith, as it were, to follow through with the convictions which will brew inside you after the restlessness you will experience from the dissonance between purpose and reality. Uncertainty is the best place in which faith will reap much harvest. So don’t fear the dark. Go with what has been revealed in the light.

Pursuing the things which are good and right is tiring and difficult. Friendships and community and being are more valuable than activism and fighting and working. That will help you to be faithful to whatever you are called to.

And you will have joy. It’s not the ecstatic kind of joy. It’s a quiet joy. It will co-exist with the sehnsucht which will always simmer in your heart. It is both the joy and the yearning which will sustain you to carry on.

Don’t fear. Have faith. It will all be alright at the end of all things.

Peace,

Ronald”

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Explanation of Some Proposals to Changes in Singapore Copyright Law

A writer friend wanted some clarification on the proposed changes to Singapore’s Copyright Law. Yes, the Singapore Government is proposing changes and these have impact on many of us, whether professional or amateur creatives; whether a blogger, a novelist, a song writer, a performer, a film maker, a teacher, or a visual artist, etc.
 
 
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Case Update: Success Elegant Trading Limited v La Dolce Vita Fine Dining Company – SGHC upholds pre-action discovery order in aid of foreign arbitration under O 24 r 6

Singapore Law; Legal; Lawyer

Success Elegant Trading Limited v La Dolce Vita Fine Dining Company [2016] SGHC 159

The Singapore High Court, per Andrew Ang SJ, upheld the Assistant Registrar’s decision in La Dolce Vita Fine Dining Co Ltd v Deutsche Bank AG [2016] SGHC 3 in ordering pre-action discovery of customer bank account information against two banks in respect of their customer’s alleged fraudulent misrepresentations.

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Case Update: ACTAtek, Inc v Tembusu Growth Fund Ltd: SGCA holds wrongful call of event of default as anticipatory repudiatory breach of contract

Singapore Law; Legal; Lawyer

ACTAtek, Inc and another v Tembusu Growth Fund Ltd [2016] SGCA 50 PDF

This case concerned a venture capital fund, Tembusu Growth Fund Ltd (“Tembusu“), suing an investee company ACTAtek Inc., which is part of a group of companies providing identification management solution, under the tort of misrepresentation in relation to two convertible loan agreements and its plan to list on the New Zealand stock exchange. The Singapore Court of Appeal reversed the High Court’s decision below, holding that the venture capital fund was in anticipatory repudiatory breach of the contract by wrongly calling events of default such that the investee company’s plan to list on the NZ stock exchange was derailed. The Court considered the interesting point of law being “what are the legal consequences that flow if an event of default is found to have been wrongly declared and damages are suffered as a result?” ([at [2]). The decision also traversed other issues of law including misrepresentation and the application of Sembcorp Marine Ltd v PPL Holdings Pte Ltd [2013] 4 SLR 193 principles regarding implied terms in contract.

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Case Update: Singapore Medical Council v Wong Him Choon [2016] SGHC 145 – Court of Three Judges reprimands and disciplines doctor for disregarding migrant worker’s medical interests

Singapore Law; Legal; Lawyer

Singapore Medical Council v Wong Him Choon [2016] SGHC 145

Significance: The Court of Three Judges reversed the decision of the Disciplinary Tribunal (DT) on appeal by the Singapore Medical Council (SMC) and held that the medical doctor, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon from Raffles Hospital, had breached his ethical duties to the patient, a migrant construction worker, by issuing inadequate medical leave (MCs) in disregard of the patient’s interests and having regard instead for extraneous interests such as those of the worker’s employer.
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