Love.Law.Robots. by Ang Hou Fu

law

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Apparently it’s one year late, but there’s a new article on the Singapore Academy of Law Journal titled “ The Development of Singapore Law: A Bicentennial Retrospective “. It celebrates the autochthonous development of law in Singapore. I am not so interested in that — I was looking forward to the pretty data visuals which the authors used to illustrate their points.

Pretty Graphs for everyone

The article has the look and feel of a grand project. Lawyers and law academics are great at expressing themselves with words. You will find a gigantic 87-page long article with an upbeat and celebratory tone.

Thus, I was pleasantly surprised that the article contains some of the best data visualisations I have seen in an article about law. When you get to it of course. (If you are a fan of data visualisations like me, check out FiveThirtyEight’s yearly feature)

Here’s one of my favourite graphs:

Phang Goh and Soh “THE DEVELOPMENT OF SINGAPORE LAW: A BICENTENNIAL RETROSPECTIVE” at paragraph 62/page 32.

This graph shows the proportion of foreign and local cases cited in each year. As you can see from the outer rings, the proportion of local cases being cited to the Court have increased. I wished they chose a different colour combination, but it’s still gorgeous.

Here’s a list of interesting graphs you can check out in the article:

  • A stacked bar graph showing an explosion of cases cited to the supreme courts in Singapore (paragraph 56)
  • A line graph showing the increasing trend of longer reported cases in Singapore (paragraph 60).
  • A heatmap showing the increasing number of Singapore cases cited in foreign jurisdictions (Paragraph 75)

If you are aware of the Supreme Court’s work, the article’s conclusions on the development of Singapore law are not surprising. However, having these conclusions quantitatively assessed and described in graphs is a great bonus!

Data collection methodology

If you are reading the article, don’t miss Appendix A (it is right after the ‘Concluding Thoughts’). It describes the data collection methods and practices the authors used to produce the visuals in the article. Given the rarity of computational law articles in Singapore, this is probably the first time many lawyers will find out how data is collected for a project like this.

Fun fact: the article states that Python regular expressions were used to extract citations from the judgement text. I guess (and this is the one I used for extracting my projects) is:

([\d{4}])\s+((?:\d\s+)?[A-Z|()]+)\s+[?(\d+)]?

Even though the article is very long, the methodology of how the data was collected for this project is short. If you are very interested, you should refer to one of the author’s earlier work. It’s less ambitious but contains much more detail on how it was done.

Concluding thoughts

The authors state that all information for post-independent reports “were readily machine-extracted from the data structure of the HTML judgments we were authorised to download from LawNet”. Given the trouble I am having splicing PDF files now, I am pretty jealous they could just pull out the information from tags. I have never asked LawNet for permission to mass-download judgements, since I am opposed to the idea for asking for permission for data that should be in the public domain. This just goes to show how inaccessible legal data is in Singapore.

Anyway, I am going to be happy with what I can get. Here’s a previous graph I made from my data. It looks pretty to me too!

It’s pink. What more can I say?

With the publication of such articles, I hope that there is more place for computation analytics in the legal domain. What do you think?

#Singapore #Law

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

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I have written a fair number of wills and been involved in a little bit of litigation in my past life. I think I met with all sorts of strange requests, and seen how they can end.

This is a common request I used to receive. There’s usually a long story to do this (but honestly I don’t care). In the end, the person says she is well justified to cut Mr ABC out of his estate. Since it is your estate, you are of course free to do what you want with it. If you want to settle scores, be my guest.

However, as a learned human being, I would discourage using a will for such purposes. When people do things out of spite, they often regret it on further reconsideration.

VFD and another v VFF and others

Here is a much better reason and a stark warning: In VFD and another v VFF and others [2020] SGFC 10 (a PDF copy is available for personal use only since the link is ephemeral):

  • A family quarrel gets so bad that one sibling sends a lawyer’s letter to her other siblings. After this, the family hardly speaks to each other.
  • In the trenches of family warfare, two siblings find themselves on the same side when they were not close before.
  • One of the siblings realises she is dying of cancer. The Testatrix decides to reward the Beneficiary by giving all she can to them in a will. The Testatrix instructs the Beneficiary not to inform the rest of the family of her impending death.
  • The Beneficiary follows her instructions and effects her wishes in her will. The other family members find out of the death of their sister through third parties.
  • The other family members now claim that the surviving sibling took advantage of the testator. It’s an ugly trial. The court dismissed the other family members’ claim for a lack of evidence. As described by the court, “their conclusions were based not so much on evidence, but on hearsay, opinion, imagination, as well as their own sense of morality and justice over how the estate of the Testatrix should be distributed, to perhaps balance their unwritten “messy family” ledger.”

It’s fascinating how threadbare the case brought by the other family members. This kind of cases aren’t cheap. When litigation is driven by hatred like this, they can’t be mediated or resolved rationally. Hell, I am not even sure this is the last shot.

It doesn’t end well…

Wills serve several purposes. Financial provision for minors and dependents. Peace of mind for the end of life. It also affects the relationships of the survivors, especially your family members.

I cannot imagine that the Testatrix in VFD planned for her siblings to fight tooth and nail against each other over her will. However, by favoring one sibling over all others, it became a slight or a testament of their failed relationship to the others.

In conclusion, it’s of course your money and you can do what you want with it. However, please spare a thought for the living who have to live through what you wrote in your will.

#Law #Singapore #Wills

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

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Previously I wrote about how Singapore is strengthening its foreign bribery regime by providing a jurisprudential basis. Foreign bribery is a bit of a mystery. Unlike local bribery, there is no clear motivating factor how a country gets on the bandwagon. The damage to foreign countries may be a distant concern for national governments. Not every country wants to be a global policeman or punish its own nationals for damaging other countries. Certainly not Singapore.

An Interest Group Theory to Foreign Bribery?

I chanced upon an article on the FCPA Blog which provides an easy framework to understand why other countries are getting on the foreign bribery. The blog, which is a summary of an article written by the authors, says:

Once U.S. extraterritorial enforcement began in earnest, the incentives of foreign firms, at least those subject to material FCPA risk, came to mirror those of U.S. firms under the FCPA. They faced an uneven playing field vis-à-vis domestic competitors which, due to their domestic or regional reach, were subject to less risk of U.S. enforcement. Therefore, in order to level the playing field against such competitors, foreign multi-nationals came to favor the importation of a parallel regulatory regime into their own country. In this way, foreign anti-bribery laws spread around the world.

Sean J. Griffith and Thomas H. Lee, “How to get countries to enforce foreign anti-bribery and corruption laws“

In Singapore, as mentioned, foreign bribery enforcement began to draw more attention after the FCPA case against Keppel Offshore and Marine. It was about this time that Singapore started the deferred prosecution agreement scheme for the first time. It did not apply to foreign bribery (Singapore’s Prevention of Corruption Act is pretty vintage compared to other OECD countries), but I thought DPA would definitely aim to apply in foreign bribery in due course.

So did our local MNCs want to level the playing field against other competitors? Maybe, but our local MNCs (which are often government linked) are in a world of their own in Singapore. They could bury this, move on and conduct business as usual.

My thoughts: Enacting Foreign Bribery laws to protect local MNCs?

Here’s my alternative argument.

When the US exercises its extraterritorial jurisdiction, it takes the initiative in determining how such violations are treated.

However, if national governments take action, it would be more difficult for the US to determine the course by itself. If the national government is competent enough, the US and other countries wouldn’t even need to act.

Locals MNCs would prefer the national government to take action since they would have greater access and influence over the course of a local investigation and prosecution. However, in order for local MNCs to benefit, national laws must already have a similar framework, such as foreign bribery laws and deferred prosecution agreements.

This is intuitive to me. I was actually influenced when I read the parliamentary debates on the news breaking of Keppel Offshore and Marine (KOM) being subjected to such heavy fines. The key answers are buried in the middle of the text.

  • Unlike the US, the Singaporean government was able to give a conditional warning in lieu of prosecution to the company. As learned readers may note, a conditional warning imposes conditions, but its conditions are not as detailed as a deferred prosecution agreement.
  • The government admitted openly that the action under the FCPA would have achieved much more than under local laws. Besides the lack of ability to impose conditions like strengthening compliance programs, the maximum fine under local anti-corruption laws is $100,000. KOM was fined several million US Dollars.

Conclusion

I do agree with the authors that the enactment of foreign bribery laws depend greatly on the actions of the US. If there is no enforcement of the FCPA overseas, there is no impetus anywhere else. I also agree that local business lobbies are probably more influential in pushing national governments to action. However pure market forces are not so influential in this side of the world, and I believe that national protection may be at work here.

Do you agree that market forces influence local MNCs to push for foreign bribery laws, or that national governments trying to protect their own businesses account for a push for foreign bribery laws? I would love to hear your comments!

#Law #Enforcement #ForeignBribery #PreventionofCorruptionAct #FCPA

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu

This feels like an opinion which is begging for a ruling from the Court of Appeal.

The Case

In PP v Michael Tan and another [2019] SGHC 207, the High Court had the opportunity to consider whether the punishment for bribing foreign government officials should be similar to the punishment for bribing local government officials. The facts are not so material to the question. Simply stated, in one case an owner of a shipping company bribed port officials in Malaysia to get out of trouble or to get its competitors into trouble. The second case is related to the notorious US Navy case — the accused was the recipient of the bribes (passive bribery). Appeals from the accused failed in this court. In the second case, the jail term was even increased.

More interestingly, the Prosecution failed in two jurisprudential questions:

  • Whether the “public service rationale” should be extended to foreign public officials
  • Whether a new sentencing framework should be proposed for corruption offences.

Of course, the focus of this post is on the first question. The judge decided at [72] that the “public service rationale” should not be extended to foreign public officials because the public interest in the original rationale is distinct from that for foreign public officials. Instead, foreign public officials are a separate and distinct aggravating factor for punishment (at [75].

Impact of this case

It’s odd that despite being number 3 on the Corruption Perceptions Index, there has not been much caselaw on foreign bribery. The Prevention of Corruption Act does not refer to foreign bribery, except that oddly Singaporeans who bribe overseas are treated as bribing in Singapore.

In Transparency International’s 2018 “Exporting Corruption” Report, which focus on each country’s enforcement of anti-corruption laws with respect to foreign officials, Singapore is labelled “ Little or No Enforcement “. Specific recommendations in the report include “Establish laws that clearly prohibit Singaporean persons and entities from engaging in corrupt practices overseas” and “Define “foreign public officials” in the PCA and other applicable laws”.

It ain’t exactly the recommendation, but it goes some way towards it. This case establishes the juridicial basis of bribery of foreign officials as an aggravating factor. The opinion should be praised for referring to Singapore’s obligations under the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. The reasons fairly comprehensively set out why Singapore should do its part to punish foreign bribery.

The Distance ahead

Based on the reasons which the Prosecution did not succeed (such as a shiny new sentencing guideline), there is ample room for the Court of Appeal to comment on the scope of the law with respect to foreign bribery.

Judicial decisions can’t paper over all legislative cracks. The main provisions of the PCA, which have stayed largely the same over the last 30 years are badly due for review. The latest events in Singapore in this event have all involved cross-boundary and involve startling amounts.

One other recent development — the recent introduction of deferred prosecution agreements which would allow the government to hold companies accountable for crimes such as Anti-Bribery. As DPAs are extensively used in the US and UK for anti-bribery offences, it is not difficult to see them having the same application here.

Conclusion

Save for a comprehensive review of the Prevention of Corruption Act, several pieces are in place for a long overdue modernisation of Singapore’s Anti-Bribery Laws. This is timely as more Singapore corporates are involved in cross-boundary business, which increases the risk of bribery. Singapore’s reputation for being a clean country is well-earned; it must adjust to the new circumstances to keep it.

#Law #Singapore #PreventionofCorruptionAct #Compliance

Author Portrait Love.Law.Robots. – A blog by Ang Hou Fu