Asian Legal Review

Court costs will be capped at £80,000 should parties opt into a pilot that gets underway in the business and property courts (BPCs) in England next week, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has confirmed.

Beijing’s detention of two Canadians – including the political analyst Michael Kovrig – has sent a “chill” through American researchers studying China, even if think tanks are not yet cautioning them against visiting the country.
That was the assessment of prominent US-based sinologist Bonnie Glaser on Thursday when asked in Singapore about whether the arrests in December were affecting China-focused academics. “There is a lot of concern in Washington…

Medical device manufacturers will not be required to obtain new ‘CE’ markings for their products in the immediate aftermath of Brexit to continue supplying those devices in the UK, the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has confirmed.

Will Anwar Ibrahim actually succeed Mahathir Mohamad as Malaysia’s next Prime Minister? That question has dominated Malaysian politics for months, and the opposition’s high-flying Khairy Jamaluddin – an ex-minister who was once viewed as prime minister material – says he has had to deal with the poser even though he is now far from the corridors of power.
It has huge implications on succession planning and on stability for Malaysia
Khairy Jamaluddin
The speculation has…

Facebook was defending itself on Wednesday against allegations that it allows illegal content in violation of Vietnam’s new cybersecurity law.
The social media giant said it had restricted such content and is in discussions with the government. “We have a clear process for governments to report illegal content to us, and we review all those requests against our terms of service and local law,” it said in a statement. “We are transparent about the content restrictions we…

Singapore immigration authorities said on Tuesday they had foiled a bid to smuggle four kittens that were stuffed down a man’s trousers into the city state after hearing meowing coming from the suspect’s crotch.
In a statement, they hailed their “fur-midable” officers for stopping the “impawsible” attempt to transport the animals in a car through a border checkpoint with neighbouring Malaysia. “Our officers were checking the travellers in the car, they…

ANALYSIS: Brexit concerns will continue to be a boardroom issue for the life sciences sector in 2019, but a focus on corporate restructuring, partnering and greater use of new technologies is likely to drive change and growth in the sector this year.

The case of the 18-year-old Saudi woman who made a desperate call for asylum from an airport in Thailand may be fast tracked as her renunciation of Islam could put her in danger should she be returned home, according to activists. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun is now being evaluated by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) to assess her need for international protection, a process that usually takes months. If you sent her back to Saudi Arabia after[renouncing Islam], forget about her…

Isaac Newton did not understand gravity. Albert Einstein misled the world. And India pioneered the science behind test-tube babies thousands of years ago.
These were some of the wilder theories on offer at a major Indian science conference held at the weekend and inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. To open the Indian Science Congress, Modi spoke of India’s ambition to send three people to space by 2022. But the lecture that made the most headlines was an attempt to link ancient…

A Saudi teenager who made a desperate plea for asylum after landing at Bangkok airport has been placed “under the care” of the United Nations refugee agency, a Thai official said late Monday.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun said she ran away from her family while travelling in Kuwait because they subjected her to physical and psychological abuse. The 18-year-old said she had planned to seek asylum in Australia and feared she would be killed if repatriated by Thai immigration officials who…