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Articles 121 - 135 of 135

Full-Text Articles in Business Organizations Law

The Validity Of Deal Protection Devices In Negotiatiated Acquisition Or Merger Transactions Under Anglo-American Law, Wai Yee Wan Apr 2010

The Validity Of Deal Protection Devices In Negotiatiated Acquisition Or Merger Transactions Under Anglo-American Law, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper analyses deal protection devices, specifically termination fees and lockup agreements, that are entered into by publicly listed target companies in favour of the preferred bidders, under Anglo-American law. US (specifically Delaware) and UK law and regulation differ markedly in the regulation of these devices. Delaware law generally gives more leeway for the target board to enter into deal protection devices. The UK regime is much more shareholder-centric and severely restricts most types of deal protections. This paper explains the differences and argues that the UK regime is the result of the strong influence of institutional share ownership. In …


Void Contracts And The Applicability Of Choice Of Law Clauses To Consequential Restitutionary Claims: Cimb Bank Bhd V Dresdner Kleinwort Ltd [2008] 4 Slr 543, Adeline Swee Ling Chong Sep 2009

Void Contracts And The Applicability Of Choice Of Law Clauses To Consequential Restitutionary Claims: Cimb Bank Bhd V Dresdner Kleinwort Ltd [2008] 4 Slr 543, Adeline Swee Ling Chong

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This note examines the Singapore Court of Appeal’s judgment in CIMB Bank Bhd v Dresdner Kleinwort Ltd, focusing specifically on what role, if any, should be played by a choice of law clause contained in a void contract in relation to the restitutionary aftermath of voidness.


The Company And Its Directors As Co-Conspirators, Pey Woan Lee Sep 2009

The Company And Its Directors As Co-Conspirators, Pey Woan Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

In Nagase Singapore Pte Ltd v Ching Kai Huat and Lim Leong Huat v Chip Hup Hup Kee Construction Pte Ltd, the High Court of Singapore affirmed the proposition that a company may, like a natural person, conspire with its director to inflict harm on a third person even if the latter is its “directing mind and will”. In both cases, the courts’ focus was directed at a conceptual enquiry, ie, whether a company, whose “mind” is the same as that of its director, could properly be said to have “combined” or “agreed” to conspire. This article argues, however, that …


The Efficiency Of Friendliness: Japanese Corporate Governance Succeeds Again Without Hostile Takeovers, Dan W. Puchniak Mar 2009

The Efficiency Of Friendliness: Japanese Corporate Governance Succeeds Again Without Hostile Takeovers, Dan W. Puchniak

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is widely assumed that hostile takeovers are a prerequisite for an efficient system of corporate governance. This assumption is false. Since the new millennium, Japan has transformed itself from being on the brink of one of the largest economic meltdowns in modern economic history to currently being in the midst of its longest period of postwar economic expansion (2002-2007). This astounding recovery was achieved without a single successful hostile takeover of a major Japanese company. True to its postwar tradition, corporate Japan has successfully restructured through government intervention, bank-driven reallocation of capital, and orchestrated and friendly mergers — the …


The Validity Of Deal Protection Devices Under Anglo-American Law, Wai Yee Wan Jan 2009

The Validity Of Deal Protection Devices Under Anglo-American Law, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper analyzes deal protection devices, specifically termination fees and lockup agreements, that are entered into by publicly listed target companies in favor of the bidders, under Anglo-American law. U.S. (specifically Delaware) and U.K. law and regulation differ markedly in the regulation of these devices. Delaware law generally gives more leeway for the target board to enter into deal protection devices. The U.K. regime is much more shareholder-centric and severely restricts most types of deal protections. This paper examines the differences and argues that the U.K. regime is the result of the strong influence of institutional share ownership. In contrast, …


Civil Liabilities For False Or Misleading Statements Made By Listed Companies To The Securities Markets In Singapore, Wai Yee Wan Jan 2008

Civil Liabilities For False Or Misleading Statements Made By Listed Companies To The Securities Markets In Singapore, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article examines the scope and efficacy of the civil remedies available to investors against listed companies which have made false or misleading statements in the secondary securities market in Singapore, both at common law and the statutory compensation scheme under the Securities and Futures Act. It argues that there are a number of limitations faced by such investors in bringing claims founded in tort law against the listed companies. While the statutory compensation scheme attempts to improve the position of investors, there are a number of deficiencies in the scheme the most significant of which is the ceiling on …


The Japanization Of American Corporate Governance? Evidence Of The Never-Ending History For Corporate Law, Dan W. Puchniak Dec 2007

The Japanization Of American Corporate Governance? Evidence Of The Never-Ending History For Corporate Law, Dan W. Puchniak

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The debate over corporate governance convergence has been heated for years and has created a cottage industry of experts. It is premised on the false assumption that American corporate governance has reached the end of its evolution by adopting a shareholder primacy and dispersed shareholding governance model. This article demonstrates that American corporate governance continues to evolve and that as such the convergence debate is fundamentally flawed and not worth fixing. The point of this article is simple: there is no endpoint corporate governance model. There is no optimally efficient American model. There is no optimally efficient Japanese model. To …


Financial Assistance - The Case For Re-Examining Section 76 Of The Companies Act, Wai Yee Wan Jan 2007

Financial Assistance - The Case For Re-Examining Section 76 Of The Companies Act, Wai Yee Wan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Section 76 of the Companies Act prohibits the giving by a company of financial assistance for the purpose of or in connection with the acquisition of its own shares. This penal provision is highly controversial in view of its breadth and uncertainty in its application. In the recent criminal prosecution of PP v Lew Syn Pau and in the recent civil litigation of Wu Yang Construction Group v Zhejiang Jinyi Group Co, Ltd, the Singapore High Court had to determine the scope of the prohibition under s 76 of the Companies Act. This case comment examines the two Singapore decisions …


Regulating Directors' Duties With Civil Penalties: Taking A Leaf From Australia's Book, Pey Woan Lee Jan 2006

Regulating Directors' Duties With Civil Penalties: Taking A Leaf From Australia's Book, Pey Woan Lee

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This article examines whether the use of the criminal penalty as a 'default' sanction for regulating directors' core duties in Singapore is excessive, and if so, whether civil pecuniary penalties ought to be introduced in the reform of the existing sanctions regime. These questions are addressed principally by reference to the Australian experience.


The Great Divide: Considering Section 157a Of The Singapore Companies Act, Pearlie Koh Jan 2004

The Great Divide: Considering Section 157a Of The Singapore Companies Act, Pearlie Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The manner in which the powers of a company are carved out to be exercised by either the general meeting of shareholders or its board of directors is often a matter of interpretation of the constitution of the company. This approach retains a fair amount of flexibility in the differing models of power allocation that may be adopted by incorporators, but once carved out, the power allocation usually remains sacrosanct until such time as the constitution is validly altered. This was the position in Singapore before 2003. In 2003, the Companies Act of Singapore was amended to include s 157A, …


An Issue Of Absolution: Section 391 Of The Companies Act, Pearlie Koh Sep 2003

An Issue Of Absolution: Section 391 Of The Companies Act, Pearlie Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

There is an obvious tension in the imposition of directors’ duties. Whilst directors being the management, and therefore the eyes, ears and brain of the corporate person, must be given sufficient discretion to take on entrepreneurial (and hence risky) ventures with a view to profit maximisation, there is also the need to curb excesses, as the potential or opportunity for mismanagement, negligence and fraud is omnipresent. [T]his short article considers section 391 of the Companies Act (Cap 50), arguably the statutory nemesis of directors’ duties. Section 391 gives jurisdiction to the court hearing the case to relieve an officer from …


Once A Director, Always A Fiduciary?, Pearlie Koh Jul 2003

Once A Director, Always A Fiduciary?, Pearlie Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The corporate director is subject to duties of good faith and loyalty. As he stands in a fiduciary position vis-a-vis the company on whose board he sits, he is subject to strict obligations of self-denial. Indeed, ensuring adherence to an absolute rule in this regard is justified by the need to control, albeit in a necessarily imperfect and arguably ineffective manner, the exercise of discretion by the director who stands in an undoubted position of power with respect to the company. A director therefore is obliged to avoid a conflict of interests and is prohibited from profiting from his office. …


The Director's Fiduciary Obligations: A Fresh Look?, Pearlie Koh Mar 2003

The Director's Fiduciary Obligations: A Fresh Look?, Pearlie Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

It is a pillar of equity that a person in a fiduciary position must not make a profit out of his trust which is part of the wider rule that a trustee must not place himself in a position where his duty and his interest may conflict (per Lord Upjohn in Phipps v. Boardman [1967] 2 A.C. 46, 123). The House of Lords in Regal (Hastings) v. Gulliver [1942] 1 All E.R. 378 demonstrated the unrelenting nature, and some have argued inequitable severity (see, e.g., Jones, (1968) 84 L.Q.R. 472), of the director-fiduciary’s obligations to his company. Such absolutism (Lowry …


The Statutory Derivative Action In Singapore: A Critical And Comparative Examination, Pearlie Koh Jan 2001

The Statutory Derivative Action In Singapore: A Critical And Comparative Examination, Pearlie Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As a mechanism for shareholder control of corporate wrongs and thus as a tool of corporate governance, the statutory derivative action has had much international attention given to it, particularly in the last 10 years. Singapore introduced its statutory derivative action in 1993 and since then, there have been two reported cases in which the action was invoked. In this paper, I consider the Singapore derivative action as contained in sections 216A and 216B of the Singapore Companies Act. The approach taken is a comparative one as I also look at the statutory derivative actions in Australia and other common …


For Better Of For Worse: The Statutory Derivative Action In Singapore, Pearlie Koh Mar 1995

For Better Of For Worse: The Statutory Derivative Action In Singapore, Pearlie Koh

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Managerial accountability (or the lack of it) to shareholders has been described as “one of the major socio-legal problems of the twentieth century”. That such a comment has come to be made seems inevitable given the fact that common law courts have consistently upheld, in the absence of fraud, the managerial authority of the Board against the shareholders in general meeting. The Directors have almost absolute authority to decide what is, in their opinion, in the commercial interests of the company. The concerns of shareholders are obvious in public companies where, for the sake of economic efficiency and as a …