The Ministry of Manpower’s Foreign Manpower enforcement divisions are stepping up their audit inspections of private sector employers. Prior to inspections, you may (or may not) receive some fairly innocuous correspondence from the Ministry of Manpower such as a survey form. The Foreign Manpower enforcement division checks whether foreign to local dependency ratios are being...
Earlier in the year, during the Singapore Budget Statement 2022 on 18 February, it was announced by the Minister of Finance that there will be several changes introduced to our foreign worker policy framework to better allow businesses to access a diverse pool of manpower. Notably, as part of these changes, there will be an...
Introduction In a landmark decision, the General Division of the High Court of Singapore issued a proprietary injunction and a worldwide Mareva injunction against unidentified persons to prevent the dissipation of cryptocurrency assets that were claimed to have been stolen. It also ordered two centralised cryptocurrency exchanges to disclose information on the accounts credited with...
“A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid.” – J.R.R. Tolkien Blockchain. Smart contracts. Tokenization. Buzzwords of the 21st century with promises of opportunities for golden treasure made accessible to the general population. However, beyond the immense hype built around them, these concepts still remain a mystery to many and...
In the face of Russia’s gross violation of both the UN Charter and international law via their invasion of Ukraine, Singapore’s Minister for Foreign Affairs announced in his Ministerial Statement to Parliament on 28 February 2022 of the Singapore Government’s intentions to, in concert with other like-minded countries, impose appropriate sanctions and restrictions against Russia....
Singapore Democratic Party v Attorney General [2021] SGCA 96 Between June and December 2019, the Singapore Democratic Party (“SDP”) published (on their website and by way of hyperlinks to Facebook posts), an article on their population policy (the “SDP Article”). The SDP Article said, among other things, as follows: “The SDP’s proposal comes amidst a...
It is well known that third-party funding is permissible for arbitration proceedings under section 5B of the Civil Law Act (Cap. 43). It is also well known that rescue financing can be granted super priority under section 67 of the Insolvency, Restructuring and Dissolution Act 2018 (“IRDA”). What happens however when the third-party arbitration funding...
The Ministry of Manpower has just released an Advisory on Covid-19 Vaccination in Employment Settings. Employers in the private sector have been looking forward to these guidelines since Covid vaccinations for the general population became available earlier this year, so as to come up with their own policies on employee vaccinations. The Advisory is an...
It was announced in February 2021 that the Singapore government would be reducing the sub dependency ratio ceiling for S Pass holders in the manufacturing sector. The reduction is to take place over two steps in 2022 and 2023, with the ceiling ratio dropping from the current 20%, to 18% in Jan 2022 and 15%...
Arguably one of the defining affairs of the year 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world at an unprecedented rate, dealing a crippling blow to the global community and people’s lives, health, livelihoods, and lifestyles. On 14 December 2020, a collective sigh of relief could be heard across the nation as Prime Minister Lee...
