It is now widely recognised that in the 1970s and 1980s, cooperation within ASEAN had a political and strategic focus. With this focus, ASEAN has generally been hailed as a success, particularly in the coordination of its members political stands on international issues. The aim of economic cooperation, although enshrined in the Bangkok Declaration, was largely relegated to the back seat until 1976, when the Declaration of ASEAN Concord was signed in Bali, Indonesia. In Bali, the leaders of ASEAN reaffirmed the goal of economic cooperation within ASEAN, although progress in this regard, since then, has been slow. _x000D_ However, as ASEAN entered the decade of the 1990s, there was a perceptible change in focus. The new raison d'etre for ASEAN cooperation is now economic. Concrete developments include the designation of sub-regional areas with complementary factor endowments for investment and economic development, the Common Effective Preferential Tariffs Scheme, and ultimately, by means of which Scheme, the formation of a free trade zone between member countries (the ASEAN Free Trade Area). _x000D_ _x000D_ The ASEAN Heads of Government recognised, at the Fourth ASEAN Summit in 1992, that multilateral cooperation within ASEAN is one of the primary means of achieving economic stability in the 21st century. The need for greater economic integration in the face of growing economic regionalism and the prospect of more intense competition for foreign investment in the region was emphasised. _x000D_ _x000D_ Thus far, the emphasis has been on cooperation in trade and industry. In the area of securities, there has been little talk of capital markets integration. It has been observed that it does not require any significant feat of intellect to notice that capital markets all around the globe have internationalised or are in the process of internationalising. This trend is perceptible too in ASEAN as individual Member States have gradually liberalised and deregulated, in varying degrees, their respective financial and capital markets since the late 1970s. Regionalisation and internationalisation of the ASEAN securities markets are on the agenda. With advances in technology and telecommunications, national boundaries are no longer barriers to international securities trading and investment. Leading companies around the world have realised that their capital-raising capabilities are greatly enhanced through multi-jurisdictional share issues. Thus far, most of these multi-jurisdictional offerings have occurred in Western developed countries. Given the significant level of investable liquidity in ASEAN markets, it is not unlikely that companies may think of doing the same in ASEAN. _x000D_ _x000D_ Because of the increasing economic intercourse between ASEAN countries and the integral role capital markets play in facilitating this intercourse, it is crucial then that ASEAN should consider their appropriate response in the area of capital markets development and securities regulation. It does not seem too early then for ASEAN to seriously consider cooperation in the area of securities regulation and ultimately regulatory integration of their capital markets. _x000D_ _x000D_ The purpose of this paper is to examine the question of harmonisation in the regulation of the securities industry in ASEAN. The paper is not a thesis on a possible code for the ASEAN securities industry. Rather, it examines the purpose of harmonising securities regulations and to question whether harmonisation in itself is at all an attainable goal in the light of the very different backgrounds of the member countries of ASEAN. The experience of the European Community in harmonising their securities legislation is considered and an attempt is made to see what lessons may be gleaned from this experience.

Proximity is a necessary condition to found a duty of care in negligence, In this article, I make three arguments. First, I argue that the cases show that proximity as currently defined (physical, causal and circumstantial closeness between the plaintiff and defendant) is an unsatisfactory duty-determining device. Proximity so defined does not explain most of the Singapore duty cases and is unsatisfactory in dealing with psychiatric harm cases. Next, I explore why this is so. It turns out that the current definition is unsatisfactory because it is non-binary, non-basic and fails to accommodate both the personal characteristics of the parties and residual legal principles. Lastly, I propose a new proximity rule and guidelines in implementing this rule. The new proximity rule is: proximity is present if and only if it is reasonable to expect the defendant to take account of the plaintiff's interest in not suffering the damage that he suffered.

Digital technology, and particularly the Internet, is reducing the cost of publishing works, but has also made the unauthorised copying and distributing of works virtually costless. Despite the level of harmonisation of copyright laws worldwide, achieved through the Berne Convention, the TRIPs Agreement and WIPO Copyright Treaty, such copyright infringements on the Internet still give rise to a number of relevant conflict of laws issues. This article focuses on the analysis of the applicable law rules provided under the Berne Convention in relation to economic and moral rights in the light of the various technical scenarios of copyright infringement in cyberspace. From this perspective, it also attempts to assess if and to what extent it is possible to attribute a new meaning to too often datable applicable law principles.

It will not be long before the Singapore Court of Appeal will have to confront the question it left_x000D_ open in Gunapathy and decide whether it should extend the Bolam principle to negligent advice cases as the House of Lords has done, or whether it should follow the more rigorous standard applied in other jurisdictions such as Canada and Australia. Rather than focus on the narrow and intractable debate about the philosophical values underlying both approaches (patient autonomy versus medical paternalism), this article draws on current behavioural and psychological studies to examine which approach would truly assist a patient in arriving at a rational and informed choice. It is argued that neither model currently employed is satisfactory because they fail to take into account the fact that the patient, as a layperson, and the physician, as an expert, perceive risk differently. Accordingly, it is proposed that the doctrine of informed consent should be structured to emphasize the constitutive nature of risk communication in order to bridge this difference.

As a trustee of a private trust, the range of investment options available today must seem particularly daunting, especially since beneficiaries themselves have greater access to financial information and are consequently better informed. Trustees may be tempted to simply buy into a unit trust. Some things however, stand in the way. First, a trustee may be constrained to invest only in authorised unit trusts by Section 7 and the First Schedule of the Trustee's Act. Even if not, the trustee must still be concerned whether an investment in such funds satisfies the duties of care and skill required of trustees. What does it mean to purchase a unit trust? In particular, is the regulation of such funds sound, and are there problems with delegating the private trustees' investment decision to the trustee or manager of a unit trust?

This article looks at three aspects involving a management corporation in a strata development. It is argued that the principle laid down in the New SouthWales cases that a management corporation holds the common property as trustee for the unit owners has no application in the Singapore context. In light of the various difficulties faced by a management corporation in pursuing actions in contract and tort for unit owners in respect of the common property, legislative intervention to confer on the management corporation a cause of action in its own right is justified. Finally, greater clarity on what amounts to structural defects in a strata development would be welcomed as it would greatly assist a management corporation in discharging its duty in this respect.