About the project

The Singapore Academy of Law’s Law Reform Committee examined the common law rule that a court should apply its own limitation periods even if a claim is governed by a foreign law. It noted that jurisdictions and territories such as Australia, Canada, the European Union, the United Kingdom and the United States had moved away from this approach to one where the limitation period of the foreign law is applied.

The Committee thus recommended that there should be legislative clarification that time limitation laws apply as part of the substantive law governing claims, subject to public policy reservations of the forum (including undue hardship to parties caused by the application of foreign limitation laws).

Project status: Completed

• The report was published in January 2011.
• The recommendations in the report were implemented by Parliament through the Foreign Limitation Periods Act 2012 (No 13 of 2012; now Chapter 111A, 2013 Revised Edition), which was passed on 9 April 2012 and came into force on 1 June 2012.
• The report was cited in Tan Yock Lin & Yeo Tiong Min, “The Conflict of Laws: Themes, Fundamentals and Obstacles” in Yeo Tiong Min, Hans Tjio & Tang Hang Wu (general editors), SAL Conference 2011: Developments in Singapore Law between 2006 and 2010: Trends and Perspectives (Singapore: Academy Publishing, 2011) at page 633, paragraph 106, footnote 288.

Areas of law

◾ Civil procedure
◾ Conflict of laws

Click on the image above to view the report

Last updated 24 May 2019