Secured Transactions Law in Asia: Principles, Perspectives and Reform is the third in a series of works that critically examine secured transactions law reform around the world. From a focus on reforms in Europe in the first book to reforms in Africa in the second, this third volume looks at Asia, and specifically at reforms in 13 major Asian jurisdictions: China, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Singapore. The collection of essays by leading experts from academia, legal practice and the World Bank Group was first presented at a 2018 conference jointly organised by the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Banking & Finance Law and EW Barker Centre for Law & Business, and University of Oxford’s Commercial Law Centre at Harris Manchester College.

Understanding the depth of financial regulations without losing the big picture has_x000D_ presented many challenges to practitioners, businesspersons, and naturally, students._x000D_ On the one hand, the modern financial market is complex and has multiple dimensions._x000D_ Traditionally, it has been divided into three major sectors: capital markets, banking, and insurance. Such divisions still underline financial regulations in many countries. Each sector has its own characteristics and practices, and an expert in one sector may not know the details of the other sectors. At the same time, different financial sectors and market participants interact and intersect, contributing to the market's complexity. Beyond the domestic market, there is an international dimension. The rise of international soft law and transnational regulatory networks that issue regulatory standards (eg, the Basel Accord issued by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision) adds another layer of complexity to the financial market. Understanding the overall financial market is a daunting task.

In 1871, Christopher Columbus Langdell, Dean of the Harvard Law School, published_x000D_ what is held to be the first casebook in the common law world—A Selection of_x000D_ Cases on the Law of Contracts (1871). It should come as no surprise that, more than_x000D_ a century later, books that combine legal materials with analysis and commentary_x000D_ are still an invaluable part of legal education. The number of relevant cases in any_x000D_ given area only increases with time, and therefore books that harvest, organise and_x000D_ analyse the sheer bulk of relevant legal material are perhaps more needed than ever.

The project which gave rise to this book was motivated by a dearth of existing scholarship on the role of plurality within (as opposed to among) Southeast Asian nations (at p 5); how plurality can serve as a "source of constitutional dynamism" rather than of "constitutional contestations" (at p 6); and the role of constitutional practice (as opposed to the features which institutions possess on paper) (at p 6). The book aims to address these gaps through a collection of essays, each of which focuses on the constitutional orders in one or two Southeast Asian countries. As the editors Jaclyn L Neo and Bui Ngoc Son recognise, the diversity of experiences and constitutional responses is such that "there is no single model of pluralist constitutions in Southeast Asia" (at p 15). After all, the nature and effects of pluralism depend on the extent of division of a society and the types of plurality (at p 10). Moreover, because pluralism itself is 'dynamic' in the sense that "a pluralist constitution should be able to reconsider new constitutional claims and modify its existing settlement to address them" (at pp 12-13), drawing comparisons is not straightforward because of changes within each country over time. Yet, the book does a good job of presenting the complexities of each country's constitutional order; and, as the editors point_x000D_ out in their useful introduction, interesting patterns and contrasts emerge when the various essays are placed side by side (at pp 15-18). The result is a study that is more than the sum of its parts.

The landscape for Singapore textbooks has seen nothing less than a sea change since Singapore’s independence from the British. Lye Lin Heng’s Landlord and Tenant (1990) was the third volume in this second phase of this change. It is with great satisfaction that we welcome the much belated second edition of Professor Lye Lin Heng’s pioneering text, with Koh Swee Yen and Elaine Chew joining as co-authors. Although it comes some thirty years after the first edition, and is thus indubitably belated, its timing could not have been more propitious.