This article explores the interface between vicarious liability and agency authority in the context of misrepresentation. It suggests that while vicarious liability is often a wider concept than agency authority, where the torts of misrepresentation are concerned there should be symmetry between vicarious liability and authority in agency.

Section 300(c) of the Penal Code is the murder provision most frequently used by the prosecution and also the most problematic. Despite a diversity of academic and judicial views on its proper interpretation, there is a surprising consensus on the correctness of the Supreme Court of India's interpretation of that provision inVirsa Singh v. State of Punjab, which has become the locus classicus. This article respectfully submits that the Virsa Singh approach is wrong for contradicting the express statutory language in Illustration (b) to s. 300, failing to give effect to the ordinary meaning of the words in s. 300(c), and ignoring the important legal and historical context in which that provision was drafted. It argues for a new approach which restores the severity of the injury which the accused intended to inflict, regardless of whether it is the same as the injury actually inflicted, as the touchstone of the offence.

Transfers 'out of a debtor's indebtedness' provoked in Elizabethan times a narrow range of rigid solutions based on legal doctrines of constructive fraud and a more broad-based evidential doctrine of ostensible ownership. One of these legal doctrines has been continued in recent cases, and others may be continued unless there is a clear understanding of why they arose in the first place. This article argues that legal as well as evidential doctrines are not appropriate in modern business contexts and develops a theoretical non-contractarian framework for demonstrating this.

Twenty-seven years ago, Peter English rightfully lamented that the scope of the defence of duress in criminal law in Singapore was far too limited, and this was especially worrying in view of the availability of capital and mandatory sentences in this jurisdiction.3 Criticisms of the defence being too restrictive and proposals for reform have also been made by other writers4 and the Law Commission of India.

The defence of illegality, although long-established in tort law, is pleaded relatively infrequently, and - with some notable exceptions, particularly during the past few years - rarely with success. The courts are understandably cautious about accepting the application of any full defence, since the inevitable consequence of doing so is to destroy a claimant's action against a defendant whose tort has caused him harm. Some judges have also expressed discomfort about the sense of moral judgment which they see as an intrinsic component of illegality. In negligence actions, however, the special form of illegality which results in the plea of 'joint illegal enterprise' has been more widely accepted as a legitimate basis for refusing a claim. Although some have questioned the justification for treating a claimant who participates in a joint illegal enterprise with the defendant as particularly undeserving of compensation, the courts have traditionally regarded - and continue to regard - this as one of the more appropriate situations in which to refuse to award damages

Might a bank rely on a conclusive evidence clause against a customer when its employee has knowingly entered into unauthorised transactions on the customer's account? Thiswas one of the key issues before the Singapore High Court in Jiang Ou v. EFG Bank AG. The issue brought into question the considerations that shape the contours of contractual freedom, and how the law should respond when a conclusive evidence clause is relied upon to defeat the claim that the bank statement is inaccurate by reason of fraud perpetrated by the bank's employee. The decision invoked both the Unfair Contract Terms Act, as well as public policy at common law to defeat the bank's reliance on a conclusive evidence clause. While preventing the bank from shifting the consequences of fraud originating from within the banking organisation may be intuitively appealing, the decision carries broader implications for the drafting of conclusive evidence clauses and raises questions about the ambit of the common law prohibition.

2010 was a momentous year for Singapore arbitration law with the High Court's decision in AJT v. AJU marking the first time an arbitral award was set aside on the ground of public policy in Singapore. Unsurprisingly, that decision generated some comments. AJU appealed and the Court of Appeal, comprising Chan C.J., Rajah J.A. and Phang J.A., agreed withAJU and reinstated the arbitral award. Although the final result is unquestionably right, the court's reasoning is arguably controversial. This case note queries whether the Court of Appeal had intended to go as far as the judgment seems to suggest. It suggests that in the final analysis, the promotion of arbitration is a policy that has limits, particularly when the State's public policies are involved.

This collection of workshop presentations refined into critical articles is excellent evidence of the service provided by the International Institute of the Sociology of Law (the "IISL") to the global community of socio-legal scholars interested in the sociology of law. For many years, the IISL has drawn together an elite band of researchers and thinkers in a summer workshop programme; the topics for which are selected to stimulate the broadest cutting-edge consideration around the intersection of law and society.

This interesting and substantial book contains papers from a conference held in Singapore in 2009. Its focus is the problematic intersection between intellectual property and competition law and it looks at the issue from an Asian perspective. The area is one of tension in all jurisdictions but nowhere more so than in Asia, where both laws are relatively late arrivals on the scene. The subject matter is thus considered in the context of developing economies where the role of innovation is crucial to economic growth. The heavy representation of economists amongst the authors means that issues are thoroughly examined from an economic viewpoint. In addition, chapters consider issues of more general significance about the economic approach to competition law analysis and enforcement.

These three slim volumes are a labour of love. They are the result of prodigious research into the history of many wars fought from ancient times. They not only detail the extent of the cruelty that man can show to man during times of war, but also the restraints that have been worked out to control such cruelty.