Defamation law is complex and requires the parties to be very clear about their strategy from day one of the action, especially in relation to the 'meaning' of the allegedly defamatory words. The meaning of the words determine, amongst other things, the extent that discovery must be made and the range of evidence that can be put forward by the parties. However, there is often confusion over the meaning of the words, especially in relation to the justification and fair comment defences. As such, it is argued that in all defamation actions the court should make a compulsory ruling on meaning shortly after the close of pleadings.

The right of 'communication to the public' was introduced into the Singapore Copyright Act in 2004, as part of its implementation of art. 8 of the WIPO Copyright Treaty (the "WCT") 1996. The purpose of this right is clear enough: it is to allow right-holders to control, inter alia, the dissemination of their copyright works via the internet. There is a recent case in Singapore which involved an unauthorised transmission of copyright works via the internet. Yet the right-holder in this case lost in its claim for infringement of its right of 'communication to the public'. This defeat brings into focus the two essential elements of this right: namely, the two 'Whom's'. To whom is the communication made - is it to "the public"? By whom is the communication made - is it the defendant in the infringement action? This article suggests that the Singapore approach in answering these two questions is overly strict, and may be inconsistent with what the promulgators intended for the right of 'communication to the public'. This assessment is made in the light of the travaux pre'paratoires of the WCT, as well as developments in Australia and the EU.

This comment describes several of the most significant amendments to the Malaysian Penal Code in the past two decades. Sexual offences have featured prominently with changes made to the definition of rape and its penalty in order to afford greater protection to girls and women against sexual violence; a widening of the scope of unnatural offences; the creation of a version of the offence of marital rape; and new offences against the exploitation of persons for the purpose of prostitution. The offence of incest was also introduced into the Penal Code with resulting jurisdictional conflicts between the civil and Shariah courts, which the author contends should be resolved by the Penal Code taking precedent. Other amendments discussed in this comment are a reverse onus presumption provision for the offences of criminal misappropriation and criminal breach of trust; anti-terrorism legislation in the aftermath of 9/11; and an increased maximum penalty structure for serious offences.

Legal language claims to seek precision. It also aims for clarity. But are precision and clarity mutually exclusive aims? Is absolute precision in legal language possible, or even desirable? What makes a text "clear"? How, if at all, are precision and clarity achieved in "plain" legal language but not in its linguistic opposite, "legalese"? Excerpts from Singapore's Railways Act are examined to give the theoretical discussion more concrete form.

Maintenance and champerty were historically torts and crimes under English law, and the case can_x000D_ be made that they technically remain so under Singapore law. It would, however, be better to deal with third party litigation funding within the rubric of third party orders—at the interlocutory stage, for the third party to provide security for costs, and at the close of proceedings, for the third party funder to be liable for costs. This would jettison archaic and technical English case law relating to maintenance and champerty, and enable the Singapore courts to transparently facilitate access to justice whilst reigning in unwarranted forms of third party funding.

Rapid technological progress has shifted discussion of the possibility of "post-scarcity society" from science fiction novels and utopian manifestoes to the pages of our newspapers and now to our law reviews. Commentators imagine a world in which three-dimensional printing, advanced robotics, synthetic biology, and artificial intelligence will enable the low-cost at-home manufacture of nearly all commodities and provision of nearly all services. This lecture considers the implications of postscarcity society for law and specifically for intellectual property law. It focuses on the likely social role of intellectual property law in a post-scarcity society and on the ways in which intellectual property law will likely work to undermine the socially progressive promise of post-scarcity.

When a contract for the sale of real property is entered into, what happens if, between the time of contract and completion, an official announcement is published for the compulsory acquisition of that property? The traditional view has been based largely on one English High Court Case, Hillingdon Estates Co Ltd v Stonefield Estates Co Ltd, which held that compulsory acquisition in such circumstances did not affect the purchaser's obligation to complete the purchase. That view was rejected by the Singapore Court of appeal in Lim Kim Som v Sherifa Taibah bte Abdul Rahman, which declared such a contract frustrated. However, the Privy Council has now expressly approved the reasoning in Hillingdon's case in E Johnson (Barbados) Ltd v NSR Ltd. This paper analyses the three decisions and the developments in local case law after Lim Kim Sim's case, and suggests how the courts may proceed to deal with this question in future.

Remoteness in contract is an area which has faced much scrutiny across the common law world following The Achilleas. This article explores two contrasting approaches to the doctrine: a knowledge-based model premised on fairness, or respect for the defendant as an autonomous agent, and an agreement-centred approach based on the parties' implicit, rather than express intention. The status of the agreement-centred model in two jurisdictions—England and Singapore—shall then be explored. It shall be shown that the model has received a lukewarm, if not overtly hostile, reception which reflects its substantial theoretical and practical flaws.

Cryptoassets, now in the mainstream with significant retail and institutional ownership, can be purchased on cryptoasset exchanges online from around the world. Correspondingly, disputes involving transnational cryptoasset transactions—which have already begun to crop up in the US—are likely to become increasingly common in Singapore given its status as a global financial hub. The problem, however, is that there is no global consensus on how to determine the applicable law for transnational transactions on cryptoasset exchanges. This lack of consensus engenders unnecessary uncertainty as to the disputing parties’ rights and obligations, which in turn has significant implications for issuers, potential investors, regulators, and even the entire financial system. Building on the shortcomings of existing conflict of laws solutions in other jurisdictions, this article proposes a conflict of laws solution to this problem for the Singapore courts. The solution entails (1) recognising that the problem should be dealt with using a choice-of-law approach, (2) creating a new category of issues, ‘market issues’, as which issues may be collectively characterised, and (3) choosing only the lex mercatus for issues characterised as market issues.

Questioning the assumption that the United Kingdom's experience in Northern Ireland holds few lessons for contemporary counter-terrorism strategy, this article examines the complex relationship between terrorism, counter-terrorism policy, and minority alienation in the United Kingdom through the lens of the Northern Ireland conflict and the BelfastAgreement. The main argument in this article, and the ultimate lesson that emerges from the Northern Ireland conflict, is that an effective counterterrorism strategy must move beyond short-term, coercive strategies, toward social and political strategies that are designed to address minority alienation and facilitate the project of building a socially cohesive, multicultural society.