Knowledge & Insights

On 9 January 2017, the Securities and Futures (Amendment) Bill 2016 was passed by the Singapore Parliament (“Amendment Act”). An ambitious tome spanning 440 pages, when gazetted as coming into force, the Amendment Act will be the most significant piece of legislative reform affecting the securities, derivatives and fund management industry in recent years. Media attention on the Amendment Act has seemingly focused only one aspect of the wide-ranging reform; see for example, Business Times headline on 10 January: “Revised SFA: Tighter definition for accredited investors” and the Straits Times article of 11 January which reported industry watchers to have said “[w]ide-ranging changes made… are a positive move that will ramp up investor protection and improve market confidence”. The more stringent definition of “accredited investors” and a corollary change to mandate an “opt-in” process for such investors, are undoubtedly significant changes for investment managers. That said, the Amendment Act also makes quite a number of highly technical but subtle changes to the law which should be carefully considered by alternative asset investment managers and financial services companies with a non-traditional business model.

If you would like information on this or any other area of law, you may wish to contact the partner at WongPartnership that you normally work with or any of the following partners:
 

LOW Kah Keong
Head – Asset Management & Funds Practice 
d +65 6416 8209
e kahkeong.low@wongpartnership.com
Click here to see Kah Keong’s CV.

Felicia Marie NG
Partner – Asset Management & Funds Practice 
d +65 6416 8203
e felicia.ng@wongpartnership.com
Click here to see Felicia’s CV.