Asian Legal Review

Strict new rules on how UK financial institutions manage their climate risk policies show how much the industry has learned over the last few years, according to experts.

The body of the last Thai national held hostage in Gaza since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel was returned home on Wednesday, Thailand’s foreign ministry said.
The remains of Sudthisak Rinthalak arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport from Tel Aviv, ministry official Jeerasak Pomsuwan said more than two years after the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Sudthisak was 43 and working in agriculture in southern Israel when he was killed on the day of the Hamas attack. His body…

South Korea’s decision to return its presidential office to the Blue House, undoing Yoon Suk-yeol’s costly relocation, has reopened old questions over the superstitions said to have driven the impeached ex-president’s decision.
The move is widely viewed as rolling back a legacy tarnished by the former leader’s failed attempt to impose martial law last year. Yoon had insisted on moving his office despite the high costs to taxpayers and security concerns.
“The presidential office will leave behind…

New proposals by Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are expected to empower UK retail investment, but manufacturers and distributors of financial products will need to consider how the changes will affect retail risk-taking more broadly, experts have said.

Before the deadly landslides and floods hit Indonesia about two weeks ago, Amran Siagian, 39, frequently met Tapanuli orangutans on a hill in the region of Sipirok, North Sumatra province.
Siagian, who has been working as a ranger to protect the endangered animal at the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) for at least five years, remembers how the orangutans were fond of eating durian and other fruits from farms in the area.
But after the landslides hit Sipirok, the orangutans are nowhere to be…

A former spokesman for Rodrigo Duterte has claimed that the International Criminal Court is preparing to arrest two of the ex-Philippine leader’s closest allies over his administration’s bloody war on drugs.
Harry Roque told This Week in Asia that President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr intended to use such arrests to “destroy the [political] opposition”, arguing that clearing Duterte-allied senators from the chamber would secure the votes Marcos needed to oust Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio – his…

A recent ruling by the Paris Court of Appeal has confirmed that the notion of ‘arbitral award’ is defined strictly in France, confirming a ruling on an issue that has been the subject of debate among practitioners in the field.

A 15-year-old girl from Myanmar is the first foreigner to have their Singapore long-term immigration status revoked for possessing an e-vaporiser pod containing etomidate, or a Kpod.
A vape pod containing the drug was found in her possession during a routine check by police officers on November 14, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and Health Sciences Authority (HSA) said in a joint press release on Monday.
She has been issued a Special Pass to allow her to remain in Singapore to assist with…

The Employment Rights Bill (ERB) will introduce measures in 2026 which will make it even harder for employers in Britain to dismiss workers and rehire then on different terms – known colloquially as ‘fire and rehire’.

Taking a short cut through Pattaya’s “Scammer Alley”, a neon maze of bars, hotpot restaurants and 24-hour Korean barbecue joints, taxi driver May shakes her head.
The money washing around this Thai resort is so thick with fraud that even her own bank account has been frozen.
“They pay with QR codes linked to mule accounts,” she said, referring to bank accounts legally registered under Thai names but secretly controlled by the foreign cybercriminals who have turned this part of Southeast Asia…