Public Lecture Presented by
Professor Alexander Loke

School of Law, City University of Hong Kong

The lessons presented in this lecture stem from the first volume of a project, “Studies in the Contract Laws of Asia”, Expected publication of this volume is March 2016. The overarching question examined is about Remedies for Breach of Breaches and to what extent does contract law in various jurisdictions protect the performance interest of contracting parties? The jurisdictions examined are: Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, Malaysia and Thailand. The lecture will share some of the key insights from the project, in particular, those from a comparative law perspective and a transplantation perspective. The project revealed surprising convergences between common law and civil law jurisdictions despite differing approaches to issues such as performance. The project also has revealed intriguing divergent developments e.g. the co-operation exception to the common law right to insist on performance and claim for the price in India and the uniquely Singapore accents to non-pecuniary loss and the introduction of a ‘reciprocity’ requirement to payment premised on performance interest. Methodological challenges and insights will also be shared.

About Professor Alexander Loke
Alexander F H Loke JSD, LLM (Columbia), LLB (Hons)(NUS) is Professor at the City University of Hong Kong School of Law. Prior to his relocation to Hong Kong in January 2015, he was Deputy Director of the NUS Centre for Banking & Finance Law and was responsible for starting up the Researcher Program which aims to stimulate research on banking and finance law issues concerning the Asian and the global financial systems. Loke publishes widely in contract law, international corporate finance and securities regulation, and is regularly cited in judicial decisions and the academic literature. He contributed the chapters on “Directors’ Duties and Liabilities” and “Directors and Other Corporate Officers” in Walter Woon on Company Law, Rev 3rd Ed (2009) and 3rd Ed (2005). Other representative publications include: “Tainting Illegality” (2014) 34 Legal Studies 560, “Rethinking the transplantation of TSC Industries v Northway in Singapore” (2013) 28 Aus J Corp Law 253, “Mounting Hurdles in Securities Litigation – Addressing the Funding and Collective Action Issues” (2010) 22 Sing Acad LJ 660 and "From the Fiduciary Theory to Information Abuse: The Changing Fabric of Insider Trading Law in the U.K., Australia and Singapore" 54 Am J Comp L 123 (2006).

Please RSVP to law-events@vuw.ac.nz to confirm your attendance.