Legislation

Trade Marks (Amendment) Bill 2006

It was proposed that the Trade Marks Act be amended for the following purposes:

1    to provide for an application for registration of a trade mark to be divided into two or more separate applications for registration of the trade mark, so as to enable Singapore to give effect to art 7 of the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks;

2    to enable a person to make a single application for the registration of a series of trade marks in respect of goods or services belonging to two or more different classes;

3    to provide for the grant of a licence under an application for registration of a trade mark to be a registrable transaction under s 41 of the Act;

4    to provide for the making of certain rules for the purposes of s 41;

5    to remove the mandatory requirement for the Minister for Law to consult the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore before he makes any rules under s 108 of the Act;

6    to enable the Minister for Law to make rules for the extension of any time limit which has not expired, and for the reinstatement of certain matters where there has been a failure to comply with a time limit, so as to enable Singapore to give effect to art 14 of the Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks.

Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2006

The Income Tax Act will be amended primarily to implement the income tax changes announced in the 2006 Budget Statement.

The following are some of the changes:

1    new s 13Q – tax exemption on certain income of a prescribed locally administered trust and of a prescribed holding company established for the purposes of such trust. Where such income is exempt from tax, the share of such income to which a beneficiary of the trust is entitled to receive is also exempt;

2    new s 13S – tax exemption on income derived by an approved shipping investment enterprise from the chartering or finance leasing of ships for use outside the limits of the port of Singapore and acquired by the enterprise during its period of approval;

3    new s 14P – deduction allowed to a company for the cost of acquiring treasury shares when it transfers such shares to any person under a stock option scheme or share award scheme by reason of any office or employment held in Singapore by that person;

4    new s 34A – to provide for changes to the basis of computing profits of financial instruments arising from the adoption of FRS 39 by companies in Singapore;

5    new s 34B – to provide for the tax treatment of prescribed Islamic financing arrangements. Sections 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 45 and regulations made under s 43Q shall apply to such arrangements as if a reference to interest were a reference to the prescribed return in lieu of interest (the effective return) under such arrangement. The effective return is to be excluded in determining the consideration for the sale and purchase of any asset under such arrangement;

6    amended s 43N – to extend the 10 per cent concessionary tax rate to a discount derived by a company from qualifying debt securities which are issued during the period from 17 February 2006 to 31 December 2008 and which have a tenure of more than one year, subject to conditions;

7    new s 43W – to enable regulations to be made to levy a concessionary tax rate of five per cent upon specified income derived on or after 1 March 2006 by an approved shipping investment manager from managing an approved shipping investment enterprise or from other prescribed services or activities carried out for such enterprise, subject to conditions.

Banking (Amendment) Bill 2006

The Banking (Amendment) Bill (the ‘Bill’) was introduced for first reading in Parliament on 9 November 2006. The Bill will be read a second time and discussed at the next available Parliamentary sitting.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (the ‘MAS’) has consulted the industry on the major policy changes and regulatory measures introduced by the Bill. A draft Bill was also released for public consultation in July 2006 and the feedback received was taken into consideration in finalising the Bill.

The key changes in the Bill are summarised as follows:

1    Strengthening prudential safeguards

a    revision of methodologies for limiting large exposures and related party exposures

b    introduction of an asset maintenance regime

c    amendment of the priority ranking of deposit liabilities of a bank

2    Enhancing MAS’ role in bank resolution

3    Facilitating risk-based supervision and allowing operational flexibility of banks

a    enhancement to the liquidity risk supervision framework

4    Expanding the regulatory scope for credit card issuance

5    Updating regulations

a    lifting the statutory reserve fund requirement

b    qualification of the restriction on the use of the word ‘bank’

c    flexibility for MAS to prescribe what constitutes a deposit

d    revision  of rules on the disclosure of information

Elizabeth Wong

Allen & Gledhill