Our Partners have contributed two chapters on Competition Law and the Legal Profession to the Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review of Singapore Cases (“SAL Ann Review“). The SAL Ann Review is an annual publication that highlights key Singapore cases and regulators’ decisions in an array of areas of law in the preceding year. Its contributors comprise leading practitioners and academics who review and analyse these cases.
- Competition Law: Kala Anandarajah, Head of the Competition & Antitrust and Trade Practice, covered the key updates in Competition Law for 2021. These include the issuance by the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (“CCCS“) of a Business Collaboration Guidance Note (“Guidance Note“) following the expiry of the Guidance Note on Collaborations between Competitors in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, for purposes of clarifying CCCS’ position on common types of business collaborations; and the revision of various CCCS guidelines to, among other things, update and align these guidelines with international best practices. The chapter also reviews several mergers that CCCS considered in 2021 reflecting how active CCCS is in reviewing mergers and hence an agency not to be ignored, and revisits CCCS’ enforcement efforts in 2021 to protect consumers against unfair trade practices. Finally, the chapter highlights CCCS’ efforts to collaborate with competition authorities in the region to foster cooperation and collaboration in the field of competition law, such as the signing of (i) a memorandum of agreement (“MOU“) with the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) on the enforcement of competition law, and (ii) another MOU with China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) on cooperation of competition law.
- Legal Profession: Partner Khelvin Xu from the Commercial Litigation Practice covered decisions in 2021 relating to ethics and professional responsibility for lawyers. The decisions touched on, among other matters: (i) the duties owed by lawyers to third parties; (ii) conflict of interest arising after a lawyer’s receipt of confidential information; (iii) counsel’s personal liability for costs when acting improperly, unreasonably or negligently; (iv) requirements for letters of engagement; and (v) unusual applications for admission to the bar. This chapter is recommended reading for practitioners who wish to keep themselves up-to-date on disciplinary matters, as well as for non-practitioners who would like a more in-depth understanding of the duties and obligations owed by lawyers to their clients and other parties.
These chapters were first published in e-First on 31 May 2022 and 3 June 2022, respectively. e-First is SAL’s e-publishing prior-to-print module.
For more information, click here and here to read the full Authored Publications.
