Asian Legal Review

A Singaporean man, hired by his aunt to tutor primary school pupils, instead beat them with a clothes hanger, forced them to hold push-up positions for long periods, punched and starved them.
One of the children, a six-year-old Chinese national, was abused for 18 hours and forced to drink his own urine.
On Thursday, the 31-year-old pleaded guilty to two counts of child abuse, one count of voluntarily causing grievous hurt and one of giving false or misleading information to police, local media…

Reports of sweeping lay-offs at Tokopedia, the Indonesian e-commerce giant majority-owned by China’s ByteDance, have renewed concerns about Southeast Asia’s largest digital economy as analysts warn the country’s tech winter shows few signs of easing.
The cuts have also raised questions over the future of one of Indonesia’s best-known home-grown digital champions, with analysts saying Tokopedia’s deeper integration into ByteDance’s ecosystem could shift more technology, product and strategic…

The UK’s new cryptoasset regime contains a significant departure from the approach traditionally applied to overseas financial services firms.

Civilian and navy searchers off Pakistan’s coast on Wednesday located and recovered wreckage of a cargo plane that disappeared while approaching the southern port of Karachi, and a search continues for five missing crew members, officials said.
The aircraft operated by the private carrier K2 Airways had departed from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates and reported a navigational system problem before losing contact with air traffic control late on Tuesday.
The Pakistani navy and civilian teams…

A year since the dust settled on the Singapore general election, leadership resignations in two small opposition parties signal a period of post-poll recalibration after disappointing results.
The once-promising Progress Singapore Party (PSP), led by ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) defector Tan Cheng Bock, was dealt an “existential blow” on Monday, analysts say, following the resignations of two central executive committee members.
Stephanie Tan, 38, was a newcomer who ran in the election,…

New disputes data published by the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) paints a picture of sustained high demand, growing case complexity and the continued relevance of procedural efficiency tools, experts in international arbitration have said.

Singapore and Indonesia’s latest push to trade low-carbon electricity could become more than a bilateral energy deal, with analysts saying it might offer Southeast Asia a practical test case for a regional power grid that has long struggled to move from ambition to implementation.
The cooperation, centred on electricity-import deals and cross-border interconnector projects, is also expected to strengthen Singapore’s energy security and help the city state reach its sustainability goals, while…

India will supply Indonesia with long-range missiles, an Indian official said on Tuesday as their leaders agreed to deepen ties in defence, critical minerals and other areas.
President Prabowo Subianto is hosting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Jakarta during a three-day state visit, with a deal on the BrahMos missile system topping the agenda.
An agreement for “cooperation on BrahMos system” was struck during the visit, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal said in a post on…

A recent ruling by the UK’s highest court could lead to an increase in employment-related tax costs for limited liability partnerships (LLPs), experts have said.

Philippine Vice-President Sara Duterte-Carpio did not attend the opening of her impeachment trial on Monday, leaving her lawyers to fight charges that, if upheld, could remove her from office, permanently bar her from politics and reshape the 2028 presidential race.
Legal experts told This Week in Asia they expected Duterte-Carpio to be difficult, though not impossible, to convict despite the gravity of the charges because prosecutors would need at least 16 senators – two-thirds of the chamber –…