By Nisha Rajoo
But this is not necessarily a bad thing. It was only just recently that our Legal Profession Act was amended amidst recommendations to liberalise Singapore’s legal sector, amongst them a provision allowing for foreign lawyers to practise Singapore commercial law so long as they passed a newly set qualifying exam. The Law Ministry, in an interview with the Straits Times, pointed out that the move to attract top-notch foreign lawyers to practise in the country is likely to promote “vibrancy in the legal sector”. Well, vibrancy is certainly …

By Jeremy Lua
Introduction
With the economy enjoying robust growth and activity for most of the past decade, the property market in Singapore is sizzling hot. Interestingly, while property prices have been edging skywards steadily in the past years, so have the complaints against the property agents.
Complaints range from unsatisfactory service, unprofessional conduct, misrepresenting key information, providing wrong advice or use of pressure tactics. In 2009, one such case even made its way to the High Court, where the errant agent was made to account for the ‘secret profit’ made (Yuen …

By Eugene Ang
The recent corruption scandal at the Singapore Land Authority has shown that, despite numerous safeguards and rigorous audit controls, fraudulent activities can go undetected for years. While this may signal a need to review the financial processes within statutory boards, it may also be helpful to consider enacting laws that encourage informants to step forward and blow the whistle on corrupt practices, be it in the private or public sector.
At present, there are several statutory provisions that offer some form of protection for whistleblowers. For example, Section 36 …

Dear Law School,
First up, apologies for the delay in publishing November’s issue – and also for the fact that there are only three articles for this issue. We ran into some logistical and administrative problems. Nevertheless, we hope that you enjoy the articles still!
November’s issue is on white-collar crime. Despite its prevalence in many countries – and the fact that it is often glorified to no end in many movies, white-collar crime has only been thrown into the limelight again recently as a result of the Singapore Land Authority corruption …

By Hong Yanci
Insider trading is concomitant with the asymmetry of information in financial markets and is a persistent problem in financial markets in the world today. It is defined as the “buying or selling of corporate stock by a corporate officer or an insider on the basis of information that has not been made public and is supposed to remain confidential.” The first insider trading dates back to the 18th Century where in the United States, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury relied on government connections to make lucrative bets …