Associate Professor Sandra BOOYSEN

A symposium was held at the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore from 14 to 15 December 2017.

The mushrooming of claims against banks as financial advisers has been triggered by recent financial crises, including the Asian financial crisis and the global financial crisis (GFC). Since the GFC, there has been much focus on how to allocate risk for failed investments. The trend has been to boost regulatory duties and remedies, at least for retail clients, while sophisticated or wealthy investors tend to be confined to common law claims. The liability and responsibility of banks regarding investment products have featured prominently in the courts, parliamentary debates and the media in the last decade.

The symposium examined the prominent issue of bank liability for mis-selling investment products. In particular, it considered the different ways in which the law is setting the boundaries of liability for financial advising and the challenges inherent in doing so. There was a particular focus on the trend towards public law remedies in the form of regulation, and how this contrasts with the available private law remedies. Contributing scholars were drawn from a range of jurisdictions where financial advising is a prominent aspect of banking business, including Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom and United States.