Asian Legal Review

Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was controversially appointed to the post in October, stepped down Saturday to end the island’s political crisis.
“Since I have no intention of remaining as prime minister without a general election being held, and in order to not hamper the president in any way, I will resign from the position of prime minister and make way for the president to form a new government,” Rajapaksa said in a statement.
The move comes a day after…

A sleepy central Philippine town erupted in joy on Saturday as bells looted from its church more than a century ago by vengeful United States troops were to be returned to the community.
Children waving bell-shaped signs and tearful residents in Balangiga gathered to welcome home the three bells that are a deep local source of pride, and which the US flew to Manila this week after decades of urging by the Philippines.
US troops carted away the bronze objects as trophies, after razing the town…

The defence lawyer for Nuon Chea, Pol Pot’s infamous “Brother No 2” in Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime, may have been working without proper legal authority for years, adding yet another layer of uncertainty to the United Nations-backed tribunal that has dragged on for nine years.
The disclosure, found in a document issued by the Cambodian Bar Association (BAKC) on December 11 and seen by the South China Morning Post, cast in doubt the proceedings of the highly publicised…

UK businesses that outsource the processing of personal data to UK supplier or which send data to other UK-based businesses in their group may need to update their contracts in the event of a ‘no deal’ Brexit to allow those data transfers to continue, a data protection law expert has said.

The UK’s data protection watchdog has issued a checklist to help businesses select data processors in a way which complies with the law.

Pension schemes have been urged to take urgent legal advice to ensure they do not fall foul of new UK laws on ‘master trusts’, following a warning by the Pensions Regulator (TPR).

Around US$150 million worth of oil was stolen from Shell’s biggest global refinery over several years, Singapore court documents reviewed by Reuters show, far more than reported when police first revealed the heist earlier this year.
Almost a year on from raids that led to over a dozen arrests, including of several former employees of the local unit of Royal Dutch Shell, charge sheets state that around 340,000 tonnes of gas oil were stolen from the oil company’s Pulau Bukom site in…

The stranger showed up at the girl’s door one night with a tantalising job offer: Give up your world, and I will give you a future.
It was a chance for 16-year-old Marselina Neonbota to leave her isolated village in one of the poorest parts of Indonesia for neighbouring Malaysia, where some migrant workers can earn more in a few years than in a lifetime at home. A way out for a girl so hungry for a life beyond subsistence farming that she walked 22 kilometres every day to the schoolhouse…

A court in Scotland has highlighted how technology suppliers can successfully raise claims for relief for delays caused to their work, and how the businesses engaging those suppliers might properly resist those claims.

Dozens of family members whose loved ones were killed in a Lion Air plane crash rallied in the Indonesian capital on Thursday, demanding the search for the jet continue.
The Boeing 737 MAX vanished from radar about 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta on October 29, crashing into waters off Indonesia’s northern coast and killing all 189 people on board.
Authorities called off the grim task of identifying victims of the crash last month, with 125 people officially recognised after…