Description

About the Seminar

Fraudulent attacks on electronic payment systems are rife, as highlighted recently in Singapore when hundreds of OCBC customers fell for a phishing scam that led to total withdrawals of around $8.5 million. For affected customers, the matter was satisfactorily resolved by voluntary reimbursement by the bank. The prevalence of such scams, which can take a variety of forms, means that the problem is likely to recur, and banks may not be as willing in the future to absorb the losses. The seminar will examine liability for losses in this scenario, having regard to the common law, the contractual framework, and from a policy perspective. A legislative solution will be discussed, having regard to the rules operating in the European Union and the United Kingdom, and the MAS’s framework for “an equitable sharing of losses from scams”.

About the Speakers

Dr Sandra Booysen is an Associate Professor at the National University of Singapore, Deputy-Director of the Centre for Banking & Finance Law and Editorin-Chief of the Singapore Journal of Legal Studies. Sandra’s research interests are in the fields of contract, consumer protection and banking law. Her work has been published in international peer-reviewed law journals in Australia, Canada, Singapore and the United Kingdom, and she has edited two volumes, Financial Advice and Investor Protection, (Edward Elgar, 2021) and Can Banks Still Keep a Secret? Bank Secrecy in Financial Centres Around the World (Cambridge University Press, 2017). Prior to joining academia, Sandra practiced law in London and Johannesburg, with a focus on commercial litigation.

Dr Christian Hofmann is an Associate Professor at NUS law, Deputy Director at the Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS) and Head of Financial Regulation and Central Banking at the Centre for Banking & Finance Law (CBFL). Prior to joining NUS, he was a Professor of Private and Business Law at the Private University in Liechtenstein (UFL), a senior legal counsel with the German Central Bank, a Hauser Global Fellow at NYU and a Humboldt Fellow at UC Berkeley. He specialises in financial regulation, law of central banking, sovereign debt restructuring and private and business law with a comparative or transnational focus.