Asian Legal Review

A series of recent warnings have been sounded by financial regulators and major companies over the risk ‘frontier AI’ poses to the security of systems organisations operate and the data held within those systems.

Thailand’s embrace of data centres hit a speed bump after the government suspended construction of 49 server farms as public concerns about the power-hungry facilities’ impact on communities intensify.
The projects were halted to give officials time to develop new industry regulations, expected to be announced in a month, Danucha Pichayanan, secretary general of the National Economic and Social Development Council, said at a press briefing on Friday. Danucha spoke after the first meeting of the…

Adjudication is a procedure for resolving disputes without resorting to lengthy and expensive court procedure. For the purposes of this guide, adjudication is a reference to the procedure introduced in the UK in 1996 by the Housing Grants, Construction and Regeneration Act (Construction Act).

The Amazon deliveries stopped reaching the USS Abraham Lincoln in February as it entered the conflict zone with Iran. A few weeks later – much to the chagrin of the sailors on board – even that most American of meals, the hamburger, was compromised by supply shortages when burger buns ran out.
But as they unwind on their first shore leave in 286 days, the 5,000 crew of the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier are finding out what tens of thousands of their forebears already knew: Pattaya will…

A recent judgement by the South African Constitutional Court provides important guidance on the extraterritorial reach of the country’s competition authorities to pursue cross-border cartel conduct, experts have said.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Thailand (SEC) has proposed a significant overhaul of the regulatory framework governing digital asset derivatives trading, introducing what amounts to the most market-expanding reform to date for the country’s crypto ecosystem.

The most consequential change in the proposed revisions is the introduction of a direct licensing pathway, permitting existing digital asset operators to apply for derivatives business licenses without the administrative burden of establishing separate corporate entities. Under the current framework, operators wishing to offer derivatives products were required to spin up entirely new companies, a costly and time-consuming requirement that effectively slowed market maturation.

The SEC’s stated objectives are twofold: accelerating the formal recognition of digital assets as a legitimate asset class within Thailand’s traditional financial regulatory taxonomy, and providing market participants with advanced risk management tools. The commission notes that the revision aims to promote the recognition of digital assets as an asset class and provide investors with additional hedging tools.

However, the liberalized access is accompanied by heightened compliance demands. The proposed rules require operators to implement robust conflict-of-interest prevention mechanisms, and introduce elevated financial standards for both derivatives trading centers and clearing institutions. The public consultation window runs until May 20, 2026, with the SEC inviting stakeholder feedback on the revised licensing requirements.

Strategically, this development positions Thailand ahead of several regional peers in the derivatives space. Singapore has yet to fully liberalize derivatives access for existing Digital Payment Token Service Providers, while Malaysia’s derivatives framework for digital assets remains narrower in scope. If enacted, Thailand’s approach would lower barriers for established platforms such as Bitkub and Zipmex to diversify into regulated derivatives products, potentially driving significant institutional liquidity to the Bangkok market as neighboring jurisdictions including Hong Kong and South Korea develop their own digital asset derivatives infrastructure.

The move comes at a pivotal moment for Thailand’s digital asset sector, which has been pursuing a strategy of regulatory proactivity since the country first approved cryptocurrency ETF frameworks earlier this year. The derivatives reform, paired with the crypto ETF sandbox and the TouristDigiPay regulatory sandbox, signals a deliberate multi-track approach to positioning Thailand as the region’s most crypto-friendly capital market.

Two Mercury-bound spacecraft left their mother ship behind on Thursday and headed down the home stretch of their nearly decade-long voyage to the solar system’s smallest and closest-to-the-sun planet.
The linked European and Japanese spacecraft separated as planned from their cruiser, but controllers had to wait two anxious hours to receive confirmation via radio signals.
The crucial operation was broadcast from the European Space Agency’s control centre in Germany, more than 200 million km (124…

Businesses should review and negotiate force majeure provisions with greater care following a ruling by the English High Court that underlines both the importance of contractual drafting and the need for strict compliance with notice requirements when seeking to rely on such clauses, experts have said.

Another 777 students and teachers contracted food poisoning in Indonesia’s Central Java after consuming government-issued free meals, a school principal said on Thursday, bringing the total number of people made ‌ill by the scheme to more than 1,700 in just a week.
In separate incidents in three other locations this week, 950 Indonesians had fallen ill as a result of food poisoning linked to the programme, a member of a parliamentary commission overseeing health said.
President Prabowo Subianto…

Vietnamese police arrested a deputy health minister on Wednesday for allegedly accepting huge bribes, part of an investigation into a company accused of smuggling medical equipment, authorities said.
Vietnam has pursued a high-profile anti-corruption campaign in recent years that has netted dozens of business leaders and senior government figures.
Deputy Health Minister Tran Van Thuan, a leading oncologist in Vietnam, was taken into custody “due to his acceptance of bribes involving a large sum…