Asian Legal Review

In recent determinations, the UK’s Pension Ombudsman (PO) agreed with the approach of providers to processing a tax-free withdrawal and to communicating a member’s retirement options. A third case gives some insight into how the Ombudsman may form a view where there is a lack of evidence.

AI and other technological advances promise to lower the costs suppliers incur in delivering services to customers over the lifetime of outsourcing contracts. Customers will want to consider what contractual levers they can pull to ensure they also benefit when the supplier saves.

Among the options are the co-production of submarines in Australia and the life extension of its Collins-class submarines, analysts say.

The government said the US$125 million offer was ‘not expected to be able to cover the entire cost of organising a large-scale sports event’.

The UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published its business plan for 2024-25, providing an accessible and useful reminder to firms in the financial sector of the FCA’s ongoing regulatory focus areas, an expert has said.

Japan’s central bank ending its negative interest rate regime comes not a moment too soon, but that alone will not return the economy to its heyday. Uncertainty over the outlook for growth and inflation persists, and the internal issues that led to the adoption of ultra-loose policy are still in place.

The congratulatory messages came as Prabowo’s two rivals said they would issue constitutional challenges over the result, citing allegations of irregularities and fraud.

Draft legislation introduced before the UK parliament on Tuesday should, if passed, make it easier to enforce third-party litigation funding agreements that link the fees litigation funders receive to the damages parties are awarded by courts, according to experts in litigation and legal costs.

As Malaysia mulls over the ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’, the public has pushed back against the need to spend big amid a weak currency and cost-of-living woes.

The threat from Beijing’s sweeping South China Sea claims is growing, the Philippine president said in an interview – but he hopes ‘the time never comes’ that he has to invoke a mutual defence treaty with the US.