New Acts

Commodity Futures (Amendment) Act 2001

The Commodity Futures (Amendment) Act has been passed in Parliament on 17 May 2001.

The Act amends the Commodity Futures Act to apply to all commodities and to expand the scope of the Act to allow the Trade Development Board ('the Board') to license persons engaged in brokering or advisory functions in relation to trading in commodity futures contracts, commodity forward contracts, trading in differences, leveraged commodity trading and spot commodity trading.

The name of the Act will be changed to the 'Commodity Trading Act'.

Highlights of some of the changes are as follows:

• licensing for commodity broker's representatives, commodity trading advisers, commodity trading adviser's representatives, commodity pool operators and commodity pool operator's representatives will be introduced;
• a new section 13A caters for separate licensing of spot commodity brokers, spot commodity broker's representatives, spot commodity pool operators and spot commodity pool operator's representatives;
• a new Schedule is inserted setting out the persons exempted from certain provisions of the Act. These persons include principal to principal traders in physical or paper trade, persons who trade only with accredited investors, banks, merchant banks, certain persons defined in the Futures Trading Act and the Income Tax Act and spot commodity traders who trade on their own account and do not solicit funds from any member or section of the public; and
• a grace period of one month will be given to affected persons to apply for licences under the amended Act when the changes come into force.

The Act has not been gazetted and has not come into force yet.

Local Treasury Bills (Amendment) Act 2001 (A15/2001)

The Local Treasury Bills Act is amended with effect from 1 June 2001 to reduce the denomination of Treasury Bills from a sum of $10,000 or a multiple of $10,000 to a sum of $1,000 or a multiple of $1,000. This amendment does not invalidate any Treasury Bill of higher denomination issued before the date of commencement of the Local Treasury Bills (Amendment) Act 2001.

Enlistment (Amendment) Act 2001 (A16/2001)

The Enlistment Act is amended with effect from 15 May 2001 for the following main purposes:

• to allow certain employers of persons required to perform service under the Enlistment Act to pay such persons their civilian remuneration and to claim the amount payable from the designated authority;
• to provide for the appointment of enlistment inspectors and to provide for certain powers of investigation of police officers and enlistment inspectors; and
• to empower the Authority to compound offences under the Act and any regulations made thereunder which are prescribed as compoundable offences and to empower the Minister for Law to make regulations to prescribe the offences which may be compounded and the method and procedure by which the offences may be compounded.

Singapore Land Authority Act 2001 (A17/2001)

The Singapore Land Authority Act 2001 establishes and incorporates a new public corporation to be called the Singapore Land Authority ('SLA'), and transfers to SLA the functions, property, assets, liabilities and employees of the Singapore Land Registry (including its Land Dealings (Approval) Unit), the Land Office, the Survey Department and the Land Systems Support Unit.

The Singapore Land Authority Act 2001 has been gazetted but has not come into force yet.

Changes to Subsidiary Legislation

Income Tax (Exemption of Interest and Other Payments for Economic and Technological Development) (No 2) Notification 2001 (S257/2001)

The Notification is deemed to have come into operation on 26 April 2001.

Pursuant to this Notification, there shall be exempt from tax any payment made under an interest rate or currency swap transaction by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to a person who is neither a resident of, nor a permanent establishment in, Singapore.

Income Tax (Exemption of Royalties and Other Payments for Economic and Technological Development) (Amendment) Notification 2001 (S267/2001)

Pursuant to the Income Tax (Exemption Of Royalties and Other Payment For Economic and Technological Development) Notification 2001 (S97/2001) ('the principal Notification'), there shall be exempt from tax, from 23 February 2001, any payment made for shrink-wrap software in the nature of income referred to in section 12(7) of the Income Tax Act accruing in or derived from Singapore on or after 1 January 2001 by any non-resident person.

The principal Notification has been amended, with effect from 11 May 2001, with definitions of the following terms:

• 'downloadable software';
• 'end-user';
• 'maintenance and support services';
• 'site licence'; and
• 'software bundled with computer hardware'.

In addition, the scope of the exemption under the principal Notification has been extended such that there shall be exempt from tax any payment made for:

• a site licence;
• downloadable software; or
• software bundled with computer hardware,

in the nature of income referred to in section 12(7) of the Income Tax Act accruing in or derived from Singapore on or after 23 February 2001 by any non-resident person.

The exemption in respect of payments for site licences, downloadable software and software bundled with computer hardware shall apply only if the payment is made to a non-resident person and the payment:

• is not derived by that person from any trade or business carried on or exercised by him in Singapore; and
• is not effectively connected with any permanent establishment in Singapore.

Evidence (Computer Output) Regulations - Appointment Of Certifying Authorities (S273/2001)

Under the definition of 'certifying authority' in regulation 2 of the Evidence (Computer Output) Regulations (Rg 1), the Minister for Law has appointed the following organisations to be certifying authorities until the dates set out opposite thereto against the respective organisations:

Notification N1 (2001 Ed) is cancelled. The only organisation under Notification N1 which has not been re-appointed a certifying authority is M/s Horwith Infosecurity Consultants Pte Ltd.

Elizabeth Wong
Allen & Gledhill