Einstein observed, "Not everything that can be counted counts and not everything that counts can be counted". There is much wisdom in this penetrating observation. Since this session is devoted to the abstruse science of measurement, may I amplify this Einsteinian gem by adding that not everything after counting counts because those who ought to count cannot always be counted upon to properly count. We evaluate indices in terms of validity. That is to say, are they measuring what they purport to be doing? Reliability, do they produce consistent measures for repeated efforts? And bias, are the values objectively true?

The oft-repeated idea of Sharia as a code of law, and thereby rigid and inflexible, reflects a concept of law arguably with a provenance stemming from the 18th and 19th centuries during the period of European colonization in Muslim lands. With the advent of European-style laws, legal institutions, and legal curricula, Shariawas reduced to an abstract body of doctrines disconnected from a historical or institutional context. This concept of Sharia has transformed its significance: no longer a rule of law tradition, it is often used to provide (over)determinate anchors in contests over political identity. As liberal societies grapple to find a place for religious communities such as Muslims, this paper suggests that governments and private parties cooperate to develop a Muslim civil society sector that facilitates debate within the religious community, and between the government and the religious community. Civil society can be used to empower competing voices within the Muslim community, undermine conceptions of religious absolutism, and foster a mutual accommodation between religious commitment and national values.

This article aims to consider the adequacy and efficacy of civil remedies for insider trading presently available in Singapore. The insider trading regimes in the USA, the UK and Australia will be looked at as potential sources of inspiration for reform. The term "civil remedies" refers to the civil relief available both under the common law and under specific legislation against the insider trader. This relief usually takes the form of monetary compensation. The focus of this article on civil remedies essentially excludes any discussion of the criminal penalties imposed upon a wrongdoer as a result of prosecution. The possible claimants for civil relief could be a securities regulatory authority, the corporate issuer of the securities that were subject to insider trading, or the counterparty to the insider in a securities transaction.

In 2019, a new definition for strict liability was introduced to the Penal Code as part of the historic Criminal Law Reform Act. Since this provision, section 26H, was designed to clarify the law, this article explores whether it can achieve that goal. By examining the intellectual history and recent judicial practice of strict liability in Singapore, I argue that section 26H succeeds in entrenching the “formal” or “elemental” approach to the concept. This is an advancement over the legal thought of the pre-reform era, in which the compatibility of strict liability with the Penal Code was widely doubted. However, the usefulness of section 26H to the statutory interpretation of specific offences is questionable. Indeed, section 26H must itself be interpreted carefully, or the law may become dangerously unstable. This illustrates the elusiveness of legal clarity and the limits of criminal law reform via codification.

This article suggests that the gist of securities market disclosure is the furtherance of corporate governance and not investor protection. It will be argued that public enforcement of continuous disclosure rules remains the primary means of enforcement in Singapore. But this should be supplemented by private enforcement. While jurisdictions like the U.K. have introduced legislation loosely mirroring 10b-5 actions in the U.S., allowing investors to seek compensation largely from issuers (and their insurers), recent literature suggests this is a suboptimal solution, given that any damages are ultimately borne by existing shareholders. Courts also face difficulties in conceptualising or quantifying shareholder losses since these are derived from information concerning the assets and prospects of the underlying company. But Singapore courts have shown that it is possible to treat corporate misstatements as a form of fraud against the entity, where generous causation and remoteness rules are available to measure the damages suffered by the corporation.

This article examines the changing nature of the legal position of parents and children under English law from the nineteenth century to the present day. The article discusses the leading cases and considers both the significance of the Children's Act 1989 and the possible impact of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. It concludes that notwithstanding the radical change over the last century, English law still essentially takes an "adult view" of what is best for the child and does not accord mature children autonomy rights.

The main aim of this article is to show that proof of pre-constituted contracts has been obscured by the parol evidence rule and the signature rule. After a brief demonstration that the parol evidence is primarily a rule of substantive law, rather than a rule of evidence, and, as such, must be rejected as the basis of the signature rule, it is argued that of three other possible bases, a theory of procedural fairness best explains the rule, leading to a narrower scope than hitherto supposed. The relationship between the signature rule and the Interfoto rule is next considered and the decision in PATEC, which has preferred the signature role to the Interfoto rule where they clash, is closely examined. The argument here is that although the Interfoto rule is complicated by provisions of the Unfair Contract Terms Act, both rules can be reconciled if the signature rule is kept as narrow as possible to reflect its concern with procedure fairness. The other aim- to show that proof of recorded contracts has been hampered by inappropriate notions of hearsay- is accomplished by a detailed study of section 32(b) of the Evidence Act and it is argued that the desirable solution provided by PATEC to the problem of records of a composite nature is a little oversimplified.

Under Singapore’s companies legislation, shareholders are vested with significant powers, placing them in the position to play an important monitoring role. Although there are discernible corporate governance benefits to encouraging shareholders to take on a more participatory role, many have argued against shareholder empowerment. Indeed, it is often asserted that shareholders are ill-equipped to play any role in corporate governance for a variety of reasons, including the generally-held view that shareholders, in particular retail investors, are rationally apathetic. The situation is presumed to be exacerbated in Singapore’s “concentrated shareholding” corporate environment. In this research, we sought empirical data to assess the state of shareholder involvement in Singapore and whether information technologies, especially manifested in the form of social media, will have any effect on shareholder behaviour. Our purpose is to reach a view as to whether the superior position statutorily accorded to shareholders in Singapore is ultimately largely aspirational where public or retail shareholders are concerned. This paper presents our results and analysis.