In modern times, trusts are commonly administered by professional trustees as part of wealth management services and corporate trustees in the commercial world. Professional trustees would be unwilling to act if they were subject to onerous duties without being conferred certain rights. Hence, the positive aspects of trustees’ rights are important. This chapter focuses on several key aspects of trustees’ rights from a comparative perspective, namely a trustee’s (a) right of indemnity in relation to costs and expenses properly incurred pursuant to trust administration; (b) equitable lien on trust property; (c) right of indemnity against beneficiaries; (d) right of indemnity with respect to costs in legal proceedings; and (e) right to remuneration.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the rigidity of will-making laws requiring in-person witnessing. Jurisdictions responded differently: some introduced temporary measures, others implemented permanent reforms allowing remote witnessing. This article compares responses in England and Wales, selected Australian states, Singapore, and Hong Kong SAR, tracing developments toward potential recognition of electronic wills. The central argument is that law reform should balance accessibility with safeguards against fraud and undue influence, avoiding overly burdensome formalities that deter compliance. The article concludes by examining how national digital identity systems could be used for the execution of electronic wills.

There has been a proliferation of common intention constructive trust claims in Singapore. The main reason is that families have acquired real estate using their collective earning power without explicitly considering the individual entitlement of each family member. When a dispute arises, the claim is often pleaded as a common intention constructive trust. The complication with applying the law on the common intention constructive trust is that this is an English doctrine developed to deal with a different social context ie the breakdown of the relationship between cohabiting couples. In Singapore, the common intention constructive trust applies primarily in a different situation namely in the breakdown of kinship between parents and offspring or between siblings. These relationships are often difficult to unpack because they are imbued with informal familial and cultural norms. Doctrinal complexity is also presented since the common intention constructive trust is often pleaded together with other doctrines such as resulting trusts and gifts. This article proposes that it is time to take Occam's razor to the often cited six-step framework in Chan Yuen Lan v See Fong Mun to a simplified three-stage analysis.

PurposeThis paper aims to adopt a comparative method using case law, statutes and secondary literature across both jurisdictions. This paper also draws on various theories of property ownership. Design/methodology/approachThis paper conceptualises the legal relations embedded within condominium housing and the various theories of property ownership to ascertain how children's interest fit within this framework. The laws of two jurisdictions, New South Wales and Singapore, are examined to determine how their strata law responds when children's safety is at stake. FindingsDrawing on pluralist moral theories of property law, the thesis advanced is that children's issues within condominiums should not be subject to majoritarian rule especially when their safety is at stake. The paramount guiding value should be ensuring their safety within multi-owned housing communities. Using the law of two jurisdictions, New South Wales and Singapore, the central argument of this paper is that the law in these jurisdictions has rightfully adopted a protective approach towards children in multi-owned properties where their safety is at stake. Originality/valueThe literature on the law of multi-owned housing has largely focused on governance issues such as mediating between the majority owners' interest with that of the minority owners' interest. Children in multi-owned developments remain an under investigated area as children's interests do not fit within the paradigm of majority versus minority interests. The paper advances the argument that children's interest should be viewed through either a rights-based theory or pluralists' theories of property law. Lessons from the New South Wales and Singapore experience are also drawn which might prove useful to other jurisdictions.

In recent times, Malaysian courts have resorted to a ritual incantation of unconscionability and the notion of a remedial constructive trust to justify a declaration of a constructive trust. This methodology is unhelpful for approaching constructive trusts and has led the law to develop in an unprincipled and unpredictable fashion. Our central thesis is that the key Malaysian decisions could have been decided on the basis of pre-existing legal principles upon which English and Commonwealth courts have declared a constructive trust. We argue that future courts ought to realign their methodology with the orthodox tradition of incremental development of the law in this area instead of resorting to broad notions of unconscionability and the remedial constructive trust.

Comparative adult guardianship law and other alternatives, especially in an Asian context, is an under-investigated area. This paper attempts to fill the gap in the literature by comparing the adult guardianship law and other alternatives from the perspectives of Singapore and Japan. The central argument of this paper is that in order for the law of adult guardianship to be widely adopted in Asian societies like Singapore and Japan - where much of adult guardianship related issues are governed by informal familial arrangements; this would require governments to do more than the mere enacting of adult guardianship legislation. To encourage widespread adoption, governments must embark on a robust public awareness campaign to promote the adult guardianship scheme, provide institutional support, and simplify the process for people wishing to sign up to the scheme and enact the appropriate safeguards against abuse. Such conditions are present in Singapore, whereas in Japan, these are lacking which explains the lower take-up rate with Japanese people preferring informal arrangements. Another key difference between Singapore and Japan is that the former relies primarily on family and relatives to act as adult guardians, while the court in the latter jurisdiction insists on the appointment of professionals like lawyers to act as adult guardians. It is surmised that this factor explains the lower take-up rate of formal adult guardianship in Japan as compared to Singapore due to the costs involved in engaging professional guardians. This paper also explores the alternatives to adult guardianship in both systems. Alternatives to formal adult guardianship is important because there will be a substantial portion of the population of older adults who would prefer these alternatives for various reasons.

Malaysia, being a former English colony, inherited a corpus of English law which includes equity and trusts. In recent times, major banks, financial institutions, and trust companies have reimagined the English trust in combination with Islamic law, by offering an innovation called the hibah trust. This instrument represents the Islamisation of the English trust concept where the Islamic idea of the hibah , an inter vivos gift and the English trust is combined as a wealth management offering to clients. This article explores how the hibah trust works, reasons why institutions may be offering this hybrid instrument, and potential challenges to its validity both in the civil and Syariah court.

Singapore, with a five million population, has a vibrant charitable sector with over 2000 registered charities attracting approximately USD$2.18 billion in annual donations. How did Singapore's charitable sector achieve its current level when it has been, in the past, segregated along mainly religious, race and clan-based communities? This paper explores this question by piecing together the current ecosystem, regulatory and tax infrastructure which facilitates the charitable sector in Singapore. Central to the development of the charitable sector has been the Singapore government's role of being a gatekeeper, regulator and enabler of charities. In analysing the government's role in the charitable sector, this paper locates Singapore's charitable sector within the literature on government and nonprofit organization relations which has been described at times being cooperative, complementary, confrontational, and co-optive. These astute observations ring true with respect to the Singapore government's relationship with the charitable sector. For organizations which pursue purposes consistent with state's vision of public good, the state's relationship with these charities has been largely cooperative and complementary. However, even within charities considered by the state to further public good, there is a strong element of co-optation where the state wields significant direct and indirect power over the charitable sector by way of provision of funding and board composition. In contrast, nonprofit organizations which engage in aims inconsistent with the state's perceived public interest are, by law, unable to register itself as charities and enjoy corresponding fiscal benefits. Such nonprofit organizations also typically do not receive state funding. This demonstrates the confrontational nature of the state's relationship with these nonprofit organizations. Through a close analysis of the laws, codes, media reports and academic literature on the charitable sector, the central thesis of this paper is that the charitable sector in Singapore is essentially a state facilitated endeavor.

Even though unjust enrichment has been recognised by English law for several decades, this branch of the law continues to be a highly contested area. Debate rages on with respect to many facets including the formal structure of the subject, the ambit of unjust factors and its relationship with the law of property. The decision of the Singapore Court of Appeal in Esben Finance Ltd and Others v Wong Hou-Lianq Neil (‘Esben Finance Ltd’) explores many of these difficult areas. In a wide-ranging judgment, Esben Finance Ltd covers an astonishing variety of issues namely limitation period, at claimant’s expense, illegality, unjust factors and the relationship between unjust enrichment and property law. The decision of the High Court was delivered by Bernard Eder IJ. On appeal, the judgment was delivered by Justice of Appeal Andrew Phang, with the court consisting of a coram of distinguished Singapore judges, Sundaresh Menon CJ and Judith Prakash JA, and international judges, Lord Neuberger and

Singapore's adult guardianship law was derived from the Mental Capacity Act in England and Wales. This article explores the process of how Singapore's Mental Capacity Act was adapted and fine-tuned to operate in a jurisdiction with different cultural conditions, religions, familial norms, and social institutions. The first part of the article demonstrates that despite its apparent similarities, the policymakers in Singapore have omitted crucial portions of the Mental Capacity Act which deal with the human rights of persons lacking capacity. This omission is unsurprising considering Singapore's history of advancing an Asian values approach to human rights. In the second part, it will be demonstrated that Singapore's Mental Capacity Act has been interpreted by some healthcare professionals through the lens of relational autonomy in certain circumstances to accommodate a family-centric mode of decision-making. The appeal to relational autonomy may be explained on the centrality of the family in the lived reality of most persons in Singapore. In this regard, this article argues that a formal protocol should be drafted to guide healthcare professionals in navigating the tricky minefield of furthering a person's autonomy while recognizing the centrality of the family in certain contexts.

Singapore’s unjust enrichment law may be described as a form of adoption with adaptation from English law, which is indicative of two phenomena: first, the idea of law as a travelling phenomenon and, second, the development of law as a circulation of ideas. In Singapore, unjust enrichment is now accepted as a distinct branch of the law of obligations alongside tort and contract, providing relief to a plaintiff who has transferred an enrichment to the defendant in circumstances where the plaintiff’s intent was vitiated. This vitiation of intent is expressed as an ‘unjust factor’. While certain ‘unjust factors’ are regarded as well established, Singapore’s jurisprudence has not confronted the difficult question of what are the proper considerations to consider before admitting new ‘unjust factors’. Hence, the unjust enrichment principle in Singapore may be described as positivist and weakly normative and operates as an organizing concept for pre-existing recognized ‘unjust factors’. Unlike civil law, unjust enrichment law in Singapore does not have a role to play when the enrichment is transferred where there is an absence of basis. This article also traces two constraints that limit the role of the law of unjust enrichment in other contexts—namely, the insistence that there must be a direct transfer of enrichment from the plaintiff to the defendant and that unjust enrichment claims may not operate where there is a valid contract conferring the enrichment. In terms of divergence, Singapore has charted its own course in terms of the role unjust enrichment law plays in the context of an illegal contract. Instead of relying on a range of considerations before allowing restitution, Singapore’s approach to restitution considers whether the claim would undermine the fundamental policy, be it statutory or of the common law, that rendered the contract in question void and unenforceable in the first place.

This article considers the legal and practical concerns for trustees regarding cryptocurrencies and other related instruments, which will be referred to as "cryptoassets". It will briefly introduce the various types of cryptoassets and explore the risks involved when trustees decide to (or not to) invest in these instruments. This article provides a framework on how trustees should approach the issue of cryptoassets.

This chapter considers the relationship between unjust enrichment and contract. It critically examines the now discredited ‘implied contract’ theory of restitutionary obligation, by which courts fictionally imputed a contract pursuant to which the defendant agreed to repay the plaintiff. The result was the longstanding obfuscation of unjust enrichment within contract. The chapter further examines the principle that a claim for unjust enrichment law may usually only operate if there is no valid contract between the plaintiff and the defendant. This is arguably to prevent the subversion of the parties’ agreed distribution of risk. That logic means, however, that restitution might theoretically be available even in cases involving valid contracts, provided that the agreed contractual risk allocation is not undermined. This is consistent with leading authorities of the High Court of Australia and with courts’ assertion that restitution is precluded if the terms of a contract between the parties expressly or impliedly exclude an unjust enrichment claim. The chapter then considers the implication of this approach for cases where restitution is sought following the breach of a contract, when the contract is void, or when it has failed to materialise as expected. The chapter concludes by considering the controversial question of the extent to which a court should take into account the terms of any failed contract in valuing the defendant’s enrichment in a restitutionary claim.

This book is a collection of essays from scholars at Singapore Management University School of Law analysing the challenges and implications of COVID-19 from the perspective of different areas of law, including private law, corporate law, insolvency law, data protection, financial laws, public law, privacy law, commercial law, constitutional law, law and technology, and dispute resolution. It also analyses how the COVID-19 pandemic will affect the judicial system, the study of law, and the future of the legal profession. Beyond considerations of the pandemic's influence on law and legal service delivery the authors consider how law can help facilitate the orderly transition to a sustainable future – the new normal.