In this review of the decisions of the Singapore courts in the preceding year, author of the chapter on civil procedure, Mr Chia Voon Jiet, will provide some comments and analyses on 2021 cases dealing with (amongst other issues) striking out, limitation of actions and appeals.

In 2021, Singapore unveiled the Singapore Green Plan 2030 which is a nationwide movement to advance Singapore’s national agenda on sustainable development and features five key pillars: City in Nature, Sustainable Living, Energy Reset, Green Economy and Resilient Future. This but sets out a broad overview of the intended achievements. Alongside this, separately or otherwise, a number of laws, regulations and laws have evolved considerably, in Singapore as well as globally.

In the webinar, we provide a broad overview on the climate and sustainable development goals of Singapore with reference to the Singapore Green Plan and parallel developments, and delve deeper into some important focus areas of the Singapore Green Plan – including sustainable financing, emissions control and carbon tax, and the evolution of carbon trading. Sustainable financing is important to drive sustainable projects and the first segment would discuss the key sustainable finance instruments available, the principles used in financing (including the LMA Green Loan Principles and the Sustainability Linked Loan Principles) and some of the practical issues encountered in such sustainable financing transactions.

As we move into the second segment, we focus on emissions control and explore the front-end and back-end manners in which to manage this, touching on carbon pricing and carbon trading. The segment will also broadly discuss carbon sinks, carbon tax and carbon credits and the impact on the various industries in relation to emissions control.

Overview

This seminar will discuss the use of Singapore law as a governing law in cross-border lending transactions. We will cover some of the key implications that follow where a loan transaction is governed by Singapore law, including in relation to documentation, lending and collateral structures, enforcement and foreign recognition, and the effects of insolvency and the IRDA. We will also discuss some of the differences between English law and Singapore law, particularly in the context of insolvency, as well as the recent English decision in Prosafe and its implications for the choice of Singapore law cross-border financings.

Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) have been one of the hottest asset classes in the United States equity market, with record numbers launched in the first quarter of 2021. The boom in SPACs has attracted a tremendous amount of attention. Last year, SGX announced that SPACs can be listed on the Mainboard of the SGX-ST.

This webinar explores how SPACs and business combinations are structured in the United States, and a comparison between the SGX SPAC listing framework and the regulations applying to SPACs and market trends in the United States.

8 PUBLIC CPD POINTS

This inaugural conference will feature international and local speakers from the judiciary and tribunals community sharing their experiences and best practices with participants. The topics for the conference will cover: 

•  Leveraging technology to bring administration of tribunal justice to the people, such as the Civil Resolution Tribunals as an exclusively online tribunal, and the Community Justice & Tribunals System of the State Courts in streamlining tribunal processes;
• The expanding role of tribunals through reforms, judge-led case management, and use of alternative dispute resolution modalities to achieve effective and proportionate outcomes;
• Best practices, ideals and challenges of tribunals; the International Framework for Court Excellence and the judge-led nature of tribunal hearings;
• Conducting fair and effective hearings, hidden traps in decision-making, evidential rules and issues in tribunal hearings, and concepts of transference;
• Envisioning a quality tribunals system – reforms in the United Kingdom and Australasia, and local insights for a forward-looking tribunals system to serve the people.

The sharing of experiences and solutions between members of tribunals will strengthen the collective body of experience and knowledge held by the participants of the conference. The conference serves the needs of the growing tribunals community through a conference solely dealing with issues pertaining to tribunals, with the aim of raising the standards and quality of tribunal practice.  The conference is part of the work of the Community Courts & Tribunals Cluster of the State Courts to help promote the standards and best practices for a good Tribunal system that is anchored on the rule of law and due process.