Judicial case management is a delicate work of art. On one hand, it is said that justice hurried is justice buried. The courts must carefully adjudicate each case based on its merits to ensure that an accurate outcome would be realised. To this end, judges are often concerned with obtaining all available evidence before assessing each claim. Yet, on the other hand, it has been remarked that justice delayed is justice denied. As such, the courts are also mindful that cases must move along in a fairly expeditious manner. The prevailing attitude of both English and Singapore courts is therefore to balance the enforcement of procedural discipline with the imperative to judge a case on its substantive merits. This article argues that such a "balancing" approach is not the most appropriate philosophy to adopt. Instead, it proposes a "lexical priority" approach where procedural discipline occupies a prior position to substantive justice, preceding the latter by way of a precondition. It offers justifications for the "lexical priority" approach and exposes the shortcomings of the "balancing" approach by examining the English and Singapore jurisprudence on case management.

In earlier cases, the non-satisfaction of pre-arbitration requirements has been analysed by the Singapore and English courts by reference to the issue of conditions precedent. It was assumed without argument that, if a requirement was construed as a condition precedent, the failure to satisfy that requirement would deprive the tribunal of jurisdiction. More recently, English and Hong Kong case law has focused on a different issue, asking whether the failure to meet the pre-arbitration requirement affects the tribunal's jurisdiction or the admissibility of the claim. This case note analyses whether the Singapore courts should follow suit.

This note reviews the Court of Appeal decision in VJP v VJQ on whether an appellate court should recompute the spouses' percentage shares of a reduced matrimonial pool after excluding certain assets from the matrimonial pool determined by the lower court. While the Court of Appeal's positive answer to this question provides welcome clarification on the application of the ANJ v ANK structured approach in the appellate context, this note argues that the Court of Appeal's analysis is overly arithmetical and inconsistent with the broad-brush approach towards the division of matrimonial assets. At a broader level, the existing complexities inherent in the ANJ v ANK structured approach, coupled with the multiple caveats and unresolved issues in VJP v VJQ , raise questions as to whether the ANJ v ANK structured approach is the best approach in ensuring that matrimonial disputes between spouses are resolved harmoniously.

As cryptocurrencies continue to take the world by storm, reactions from a legal perspective are to be expected. In CLM v CLN [2022] SGHC 46, the Singapore High Court agreed with the emerging Commonwealth view that cryptocurrencies can constitute property. This note explores the possible legal consequences of such a holding and attempts to answer some novel questions that may need to be addressed as technology continues to evolve over time.

In recent years, a number of Singapore cases have come to the attention of common law trust lawyers outside Singapore. Particularly prominent has been Chan Yuen Lan v See Fong Mun [2014] 3 SLR 1048 (CA), where the Singapore Court of Appeal affirmed the dissenting judgement by Lord Neuberger in Stack v Dowden [2007] 2 AC 432 (HL), which significantly restricted the application of family home trusts in Singapore. Unsurprisingly, Singapore law's divergence from English law in this area has attracted the attention of local trust scholars, in particular Man Yip (see Comparing Family Property Disputes in English and Singapore Law (2021)) and Kelvin Low (see Victoria Meets Confucius in Singapore (2021)) who seek to explain how Singapore's socio-legal context might have led to these developments. More broadly, the emphasis on Singapore's distinctiveness as an equity jurisdiction reflects trends in the field since Yihan Goh and Paul Tan's Singapore Law: 50 Years in the Making (2015). As Justice Andrew Phang highlights in the preface to the present book, in recent years Singapore courts have shown an important " attitudinal " change to foster "the spirit of autochthony", which expresses itself above all in selecting best practice from across the Commonwealth and taking an independent direction where this is required.

Secured Transactions Law in Asia: Principles, Perspectives and Reform is the third in a series of works that critically examine secured transactions law reform around the world. From a focus on reforms in Europe in the first book to reforms in Africa in the second, this third volume looks at Asia, and specifically at reforms in 13 major Asian jurisdictions: China, Indonesia, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei Darussalam, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Singapore. The collection of essays by leading experts from academia, legal practice and the World Bank Group was first presented at a 2018 conference jointly organised by the National University of Singapore’s Centre for Banking & Finance Law and EW Barker Centre for Law & Business, and University of Oxford's Commercial Law Centre at Harris Manchester College.

The landscape for Singapore textbooks has seen nothing less than a sea change since Singapore's independence from the British. Especially after the launch of Academy Publishing, the publishing division of the Singapore Academy of Law in 2007, law students and practitioners now enjoy access to a cornucopia of titles ranging from core subjects such as contract and tort to specialist topics such as the subject of this review. The first edition of this text was published in 1990, as the third volume in the second phase of what was known as the Singapore Law Series. The first phase began in 1976 (not 1978 as the Editor's Foreword in the first edition of this text suggests) with three books - S Jayakumar's Constitutional Law, Kenneth Wee Kim Seng's Family Law, and Koh Kheng Lian's Criminal Law - and was intended to provide an introductory survey of the main areas of Singapore law.

Inherent in any public housing system which seeks to provide subsidised housing for sale is the need to impose restrictions on ownership and alienation in order to prevent abuse by those who would seek to exploit those subsidies for profit. In Singapore, section 51(10) of the Housing and Development Act restricts the operation of resulting and constructive trusts over property sold by the Housing and Development Board ("HDB"). It has been accepted since the 2009 decision of Tan Chui Lian v Neo Liew Eng that under this provision, a person "ineligible" to acquire an interest in a HDB flat may not become entitled to a flat under a resulting or constructive trust. However, recent cases have questioned the focus on eligibility and cast doubt on the effect of section 51(10) on the underlying trust. This article examines these developments and proposes a framework for the reconciliation of common law equitable doctrines with the provisions of the Housing and Development Act.

Articles 14 and 15 of the Singapore Constitution enshrine the rights to free speech, religious freedom, and other related rights in Singapore. These provisions also set out the circumstances under which these rights may be restricted. Notably, however, these provisions are directed at legislative restrictions. The question is how they are applicable to executive action. This paper suggests that there are two possible means by which one can assess the constitutionality of executive action under Articles 14 and 15 in Singapore—the jurisdictional and substantive approaches—and demonstrates that evidence of both approaches can be found in Singapore law. Drawing upon constitutional theory, the paper argues that the theoretical foundation for legal doctrine in this regard ought to be a combination of both the jurisdictional and substantive approaches, and also discusses the doctrinal test by which challenges to executive action under Articles 14 and 15 should be assessed.

Business to business ("B2B") artificial intelligence ("AI") transactions raise challenging private law liability issues because of the distinctive nature of AI systems and particularly the new relational dynamics between AI solutions providers and procurers. This article advances a three-stage framework comprising data management, system development and implementation, and external threat management. The purpose is to unpack AI design and development processes involving the relational dynamics of providers and procurers in order to understand the parties' respective responsibilities. Applying this framework to English commercial law, this article analyses the potential liability of AI solutions providers and procurers under the Supply of Goods and Services Act and the Sale of Goods Act . The assumption that only AI solutions providers will be subject to liability, or that no party will be liable due to the "autonomous" nature of AI systems, is rejected.