Hri Kumar Nair, SC raised concerns about the liberalisation of Singapore’s legal industry

14 Feb 2012

Bloomberg

Hri Kumar Nair, SC raised concerns about the further opening of Singapore’s legal industry in response to the legislative changes proposed by Law Minister K.Shanmugam.

Under the proposed changes, Singapore will allow foreign law firms to own stakes in local legal practices or share in their profits. The rules for the admission of experienced foreign trial lawyers will also be relaxed.

Mr Nair posed a question to the Minister regarding the envisaged direction that the Singapore legal industry would take and whether, like Hong Kong, Singapore was prepared for international law firms to dominate in nearly every area of law as a result of the liberalisation. The Minister responded by saying that the proposed changes was not a mandate that domestic law firms had to follow.

Read the report in Bloomberg.