In August 2025, two research centres from the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore – the Centre for Technology, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & the Law (“TRAIL”) and the EW Barker Centre for Law & Business – partnered with research centres from Columbia, Oxford and Tsinghua to co‑organise a truly transnational two‑day conference marking the first‑ever academic collaboration of its kind across these leading global institutions. Titled “Intellectual Property and Technology in the 21st Century: Challenges in the Next Decade”, the conference discussed how intellectual property (“IP”) laws can better deal with disruptive technology trends. The conference was also supported by partners such as Google, ByteDance, the Singapore Academy of Law and the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (“IPOS”).

One of the biggest lessons I learnt in law school was that the law never happens in a vacuum, and in these times of geopolitical tension, economic uncertainty, societal stress and technological acceleration, context matters more than ever. Therefore, I hope in this keynote to provide some context to the discussions that will take place over the next two days.

The advent of sophisticated AI-driven voice cloning has brought to the fore critical legal and ethical challenges regarding the protection of vocal identity. Prompted by recent controversies – including the striking resemblance between OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4o voice and that of Scarlett Johansson – this article examines how generative AI technologies undermine the unique value of the human voice and further complicate the legal questions surrounding personal identity. Through a comparative analysis, the paper evaluates three principal legal frameworks: the right of publicity, personality rights, and the personal data protection right. Each framework – rooted in different legal traditions – offers distinct strengths and limitations in addressing the threats posed by AI-generated voice cloning. By analysing these doctrines’ scope, remedies, and posthumous protections, the study offers a foundation for understanding how existing legal approaches may be applied to the evolving challenges of vocal identity in the era of generative AI.

Although Singapore has legalised sports betting since 1999 and the sector involves billions of dollars, it lacks specific legislation regulating the misuse of inside information in sports betting, one of the two most common forms of match manipulation observed internationally and a recognised money laundering risk. This regulatory gap could be exploited, especially as developments in other jurisdictions reveal emerging legal and policy challenges that Singapore’s existing anti-corruption laws cannot fully address. These implications remain unexamined in the Singapore context and this article seeks to fill that gap by examining these challenges, identifying existing regulatory approaches, and proposing a Hybrid Information-Connected Approach, inspired by Singapore’s financial insider trading laws, for Singapore to consider adopting. By identifying and defining this hybrid approach, this article aims to contribute a framework for future regulatory development in sports betting and support Singapore’s efforts to uphold sports integrity and strengthen its anti-money laundering regime.

It is an oft-repeated truism that damages are compensatory. Errant doctrines which recognise the possibility of monetary recovery in excess of loss, such as punitive damages, are marginalised as anomalies. Others, such as negotiating damages, are uncomfortably shoehorned into the Procrustean bed of compensation. Cost-of-cure damages have likewise become a casualty of the law’s apparent fixation on compensation. Despite suggestions to the contrary, these damages are often treated as simply one measure of loss. That approach has thrown up difficult questions about the dual roles of the claimant’s intention to effect cure and the reasonableness of curing. In Terrenus Energy SL2 Pre Ltd v Attika Interior + MEP Pte Ltd [2025] SGHC(A) 4, the Appellate Division of the High Court was called on to revisit these questions, which had previously been confronted in JSD Corporation Pte Ltd v Tri-Line Express Pte Ltd [2022] SGHC 227.

Under s 359(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code 2010, the court can order an offender to compensate the victim with a sum which the victim would have been able to recover in a civil claim in tort against the offender. The courts have used this useful power extensively, though problems remain. One such problem is seen in Ong Eng Siew, where the court declined to make a compensation order. Given the purpose of the compensation system, the court was not correct to hold – in effect – that the purpose of s 359(1) is to benefit only impecunious victims, and that the Prosecution bears the burden of proving that the victim is impecunious. Further, the compensation order should have covered not only medical expenses paid by the victim in cash, but also those paid using Central Provident Fund savings and MediShield Life insurance payouts. This comment also calls for further study of the compensation regime in practice and possible procedural reforms to make it easier for victims to have prosecutors present evidence relevant to the issue of compensation.