Insurance Law Association of Singapore

Should Sg insurers be forced to report ransomware attacks? In Australia part 3 of the Cyber Security Act 2024 imposes obligations on large companies to report cybersecurity incidents. An incident must be reported if it had a significant or relevant impact on assets/ These obligations took effect in May 2025. Th Australian Government says that this law was necessary to give it a fuller picture of emerging cyber threats and risks, so it can better work to educate and mitigate against cyberattacks that can seriously impact critical services and businesses. Original article: https://lnkd.in/gmHtbXwS

Final call!

Lesson 3 from Feida Bus Consortium Pte Ltd v Royal Autoz Exporter Pte Ltd [2025] SGHC 141 - interpreting contractual obligations to buy insurance 🔥 The warehouse which burnt down was not properly insured. The Defendant was obliged by clause 15 to insure against fire damage suffered by the Defendant. 📃 The Plaintiff sued for a breach of clause 15. However, there was no explanation as to how clause 15 was relevant to fire damage suffered by the Plaintiff. As such the judge concluded that the breach of this clause did not entitle the Plaintiff to claim for any losses. 📄 The Plaintiff argued that further insurance obligations should be implied into the tenancy agreement but failed to show the commercial necessity for them. #insurancelaw #litigation 👩⚖️ The court commented that the tenant’s failure to buy insurance does not necessarily absolve the landlord of liability for losses which the landlord’s negligence causes the tenant, even if such losses might have been covered by the insurance that the tenant should have procured. This would particularly be the case if there is an absence of any indication that parties intended the insurance to inure to the benefit of the landlord (and not just the tenant).

All the best to Australian Insurance Law Association for their national conference tomorrow! https://lnkd.in/gWBgxznb #insurancelaw

Lesson 2 from Feida Bus Consortium Pte Ltd v Royal Autoz Exporter Pte Ltd [2025] SGHC 141 - a person can owe sperate duties to prevent a fire from starting and prevent a fire from spreading. A party may also owe a duty to maintain effective and adequate firefighting equipment The High Court held at [73] that the Plaintiff that the Defendant did owe the Plaintiff a duty to take reasonable care to prevent fires from starting or spreading in the Warehouse. On the facts, however, there was no breach. As such, the Claimant's claim failed. The Defendant counter-claimed alleging that the fire fighting equipment in the premises was not enough. The claim was based on an allegation that no water came out of the hose when it was used. However, the failed because the court preferred the evidence that water did come out. The court noted that the duty to maintain fire fighting equipment could fall on either party depending on the factual matrix. The court did not think there was sufficient commercial necessity to imply a term into the tenancy agreement to place the duty on one person. On the facts, the Defendant failed to explain why any tortious duty should fall on the landlord and not the tenant. #insurancelaw #litigation

Lesson 1 from Feida Bus Consortium Pte Ltd v Royal Autoz Exporter Pte Ltd [2025] SGHC 141 = how to apply res ipsa loquitur in a fire case. 👩⚖️ Res ipsa loquitur is an evidential rule which reverses the normal burden of proof. When applied it means that a party has to show that it was not negligent. In Singapore the requirements are: (a) The defendant must have been in control of the situation or thing which resulted in the accident (b) The accident would not have happened, in the ordinary course of things, if proper care had been taken (c) The cause of the accident must be unknown 🔥 In this matter, the Defendant occupied a warehouse that it used for its car scrapping trade and the Defendant's workers were on site when the fire happened. The Defendant therefore controlled the premises and (a) was met. 🔥 The experts were all of the view that the fire originated from a Cherry brand car and the evidence suggested that the fire was likely electrical in origin. That said, there were divergent views on whether an electrical fault in the car causes the fire. In view of the evidence court concluded that the cause of the fire was unknown and (c) was met). ‼️ Where the Claimant failed was in showing (b). Previous cases had held that res ipsa loquitur does not apply if the evidence is equally consistent with negligent as with non-negligent causes. An electrical fault could have been triggered within the Chery car even as it lay dormant, with no one having turned its engine on. Without more, the state of the evidence could arguably be regarded as “equally consistent with negligence as with no negligence”. The Claimant had identified any act or omission by the Defendant which could have caused the fire. #insurancelaw #litigation

Computerization of manual records for the purposes of investigation found not to amount to a business record for the sake of the business record hearsay exemption - De Beaute (SSC) Pte Ltd V Tan Mong Ngoh [2025] SGDC 268 If pleadings form the bones of a litigation then evidence forms the flesh. In Singapore hearsay evidence (statements made outside of court but presented in court to prove the truth of the matter asserted) are inadmissible unless a hearsay exception applies. One such exception is the business record exception. This exception is commonly encountered by claims officers overseeing the defence of claims and subrogation recoveries. The recent De Beaute decision reaffirmed that the rationale for the business records exception is that a statement made in the ordinary course of business is a record of historical fact made from a disinterested standpoint, and which may thereby be presumed to be true. The court held that the rule did not apply to records not made or compiled in the ordinary course of business. #insurancelaw #litigation

Next week we will be looking at 3 lessons from Feida Bus Consortium Pte Ltd v Royal Autoz Exporter Pte Ltd [2025] SGHC 141. In this case, the Claimant was the lessee of a property and they had sub-let a warehouse on the property to the Defendant. The Defendant used the warehouse to store old cars ahead of scrapping them. There was a major fire in May 2020. The Claimant blamed the Defendant tenant for breaching their tenancy agreement and for being negligent. The Defendant counter-claimed that the Claimant itself had breached its obligations in the tenancy agreement. The court dismissed almost all the claims. The only successful claim was an $814 claim by the Claimant against the Defendant for not paying stamp duty on its lease, leading to the Claimant having to bear this loss.