Our April e-bulletin begins in Singapore, where the recently announced Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests will come into effect on 1 December 2024. Click here to see how the Guidelines may impact employers. In Mainland China, we take a look at the new Regulations on Promotion Cross-Border Data Flow issued by the Cyberspace Administration of China and how they help facilitate cross-border transfers of employee data by employers. Click here for more details. Over in Hong Kong, the court in Manulife Financial Asia Limited v Kenneth Joseph Rappold [2024] HKCFI 989 declined ..read more

Nowadays, 94% of organisations have measures in place to manage what employees can do or say publicly, and 36% admit that how organisations respond to geo-political events is a key reputational issue (HSF Future of Work Report 2021). Employee activism in relation to events generally unrelated to the individual’s workplace causes concern for employers who want to address this conduct in a way that does not affect the employer’s reputation or other employees, which is often difficult when driven by strong emotions, philosophies, and beliefs at the core to an individual’s sense of self. In this p ..read more

On 16 April 2024, Singapore’s Ministry of Manpower (MOM) announced that the Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Request (Guidelines) will come into effect on 1 December 2024 and replace the existing Tripartite Advisory on Flexible Work Arrangements issued in 2014 as well as the Tripartite Standard on Flexible Work Arrangements introduced in 2017. Under the Guidelines, which set out how employees should request for FWAs and use them and how employers should handle FWA requests, employers are required to fairly consider formal requests for flexible work arrangements (FWAs). FWAs U ..read more

On 22 March 2024, the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) officially issued and implemented the “Regulations on Promoting and Regulating Cross-Border Data Flow” (Data Flow Regulations). These regulations will greatly facilitate employers in implementing cross-border transfer of employee data. This update will summarize the key content of the Data Flow Regulations. Before the implementation of the Data Flow Regulations In our previous update, we analysed the cross-border data transfer mechanisms under China’s “Personal Information Protection Law” (PIPL). In short, the PIPL stipulates three ..read more

The recent Court of First Instance decision in Manulife Financial Asia Limited v Kenneth Joseph Rappold & ors [2024] HKCFI 989 emphasises the importance of carefully drafted non-compete restraints with regard to geographical scope, degree of specificity regarding confidential information and consequences of misuse, and duration. In assessing the justification for relief for alleged breach of a non-compete clause, the Court will take the course that carries a lower risk of injustice if it should turn out that it is wrong, based on the balance of convenience. This will include making a provi ..read more

The Occupational Safety and Health (Amendment) Act 2022 (OSH Amendment Act) will come into effect on 1 June 2024. The OSH Amendment Act expands the applicability of existing safety duties under the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 (OSHA) to most workplaces, and introduces new safety obligations and increases penalties for safety violations. Extension of Scope Currently, the OSHA applies throughout Malaysia to specific industries set out in the First Schedule, including manufacturing, mining and construction industries. The OSH Amendment Act will expand the applicability of the OSHA from ..read more

Whistleblowing protection is available where the employer subjects a worker to detriment or dismissal because they have made a ‘protected disclosure’.  Two recent EAT rulings have clarified how much the decision-maker must know about the disclosure for a claim to succeed – and therefore flag potential defences to employers facing a claim: Where the person deciding on dismissal or detriment is not the person to whom the disclosure was made, the decision-maker must have some knowledge of the substance of the disclosure and not just that a disclosure was made (although they do not need to a ..read more

Last week, three potential transformational changes to U.S. labor and employment law were announced. The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) banned almost all non-compete agreements, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) significantly increased the minimum salary threshold for overtime exemptions for white-collar employees, and New York State became the first state to offer paid leave for prenatal care. We say “potential” because it is possible that the non-compete and overtime proposals will never become law. Below, we summarize these proposals and join the fray of commentators by recommending a ..read more

Update 24 April 2024: the statutory ‘fire and re-hire’ Code is now expected to be brought into force on 18 July 2024, as this is the date that a draft order adding protective awards to the list of claims for which a 25% adjustment to compensation can be made for breach (see below) will come into force.  The Government has published a revised draft of its proposed statutory code on dismissal and re-engagement, following consultation on an earlier draft last year.  It now awaits parliamentary approval, and the Government expects to bring it into force ‘later in the Summer’.  The d ..read more

Our e-bulletin this month begins with a look at a recent Singapore case where the court took into account the Tripartite Guidelines on Wrongful Dismissals in finding that an employer lacked sufficient cause in dismissing a pregnant employee under section 84(1)(b) of the Employment Act. Click here to read a summary of the case. Over in Mainland China, we look at the latest cases and judicial reports concerning women’s employment rights, including the Work Report on the Trial of Labour Disputes Involving Female Employees from 2018 to 2023 published by the Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court. Clic ..read more