Book Launch – Economic Torts in Singapore

On 8 June 2026, Professor David Tan, Co-Director of TRAIL, together with his co-author Joshua Phang, launched their new book Economic Torts in Singapore at the Salon of the National Museum of Singapore.

With over 100 guests in attendance, the launch event kicked off with former High Court Judge Mr Choo Han Teck delivering the opening remarks before the authors explained the impetus behind the book and the key takeaways of the eleven torts covered in the book. Former Chief Justice Mr Chan Sek Keong also graced the occasion, and the authors paid tribute to him for his 2007 landmark decision by the Court of Appeal in Spandeck Engineering (S) Pte Ltd v Defence Science & Technology Agency that recognised pure economic loss as recoverable in Singapore under the tort of negligence, which justified the inclusion of negligence as an economic tort in this book. Mr Thio Shen Yi, S.C., Joint Managing Partner of TSMP, moderated a brief panel discussion with the authors.

Overall, a festive ambience permeated as laughter and selfies flowed freely. Prof Tan remarked: “It’s a fantastic reunion! What a delight and privilege to see my former torts students, like Chen Zhida, Kenneth Wang and Bryan Lim, across the span of over a decade coming together today. And they bought the book too!”

In the foreword penned by Senior Judge of the Supreme Court of Singapore the Honourable Andrew Phang, he said: “[T]he present book is an excellent as well as significant addition to the legal literature in this area of the law. It is the first book on economic torts in Singapore. As importantly, because of its refreshing comparative outlook, it is a volume that will simultaneously be of great use and relevance to judges, lawyers and students in other common law jurisdictions as well. … The existing legal position is clearly and comprehensively set out and the authors’ analyses (particularly of areas of the law in this area that are unsettled) are extremely perceptive as well as thought provoking. As already noted, this work contains references to every relevant local decision and is therefore an excellent and important resource as well as roadmap through this extremely important (and, on occasion, difficult) area of the tort law of Singapore. I would therefore commend this book to all lawyers, judges and students of tort law in the highest possible terms.”

How the economic torts are evolving with the increasing use of technology in commerce is also discussed in this book. For example, in the tort of passing off, proving local goodwill, especially for foreign businesses, will require pre-trading activities to be taken into account as well as an evaluation of whether the relevant website targeted consumers in Singapore and whether local consumers were making commercial transactions on this website. For the tort of defamation, regarding whether a post on the internet or a social media platform was defamatory, publication first requires the plaintiff to show that the defendant posted the defamatory material online, making the contents available to third party or parties. The Singapore Court of Appeal had accepted that certain facts could be established, from which the court could then properly infer that substantial publication had occurred. These facts include the number of “likes”, “shares”, “reactions” and comments that a post attracts, which may provide insight into the number of people who accessed it, especially given that not all individuals who read the post will always respond in such fashion; the number of “friends” and “followers” the defendant has on the relevant social media platform, which may also assist in determining if substantial publication has taken place; and whether the privacy settings of the relevant post is set to “public”, which may also give rise to an inference that third parties have accessed the defamatory statement and that there was substantial publication.

Economic Torts in Singapore is published by Academy Publishing under its Monograph Series. Joshua Phang Shih Ern is a Director at TSMP and was recognised as one of Singapore’s Top 20 Most Notable Lawyers Under 40 by the Singapore Business Review in January 2025.

All photographs by Vincent Nghai