SINGAPORE Law and Practice Contributed by: Sim Bock Eng, Josephine Choo, Aw Wen Ni and Vincent Ho, WongPartnership LLP
case of Ivanishvili, Bidzina and others v Credit Suisse Trust Limited [2023] SGHC(I) 9, where the settlor of the trust brought a claim against the trustees for breach of trust. The trustees relied on the anti-Bartlett clause in the trust deed in an attempt to exclude liability for the losses claimed. Distinguishing the case of Zhang Hong Li & Ors v DBS Bank (Hong Kong) Limited & Ors [2019] HKCFA 45, the Singapore court held that the trustee’s irreducible core of obligations included the duty to safeguard the trust assets, and that the anti-Bartlett clause was not effective to exclude the trustee’s liability on the facts of the case. This is con - sistent with the Singapore court’s finding in Lalwani Ashok Bherumal v Lalwani Shalini Gobind and another [2019] 4 SLR 1304 at [38] that an irreducible core of obligations is owed to beneficiaries. 6.3 Fiduciary Regulation Section 3A of the Trustees Act 1967 prescribes a statutory duty of care for trustees when exercising their powers. Generally, a trustee must exercise such care and skill as is reasonable in the circumstances, taking into account any special knowledge or experi - ence that they have or hold themselves out as having, and, if they act as trustee in the course of a business or profession, any special knowledge or experience that may reasonably be expected of a person acting in the course of that kind of business or profession. In addition, the trustees are subject to the usual com - mon law duty to act in good faith, not to act in conflict with the trust’s interest and to exercise their rights and powers in good faith for the benefit of the beneficiaries of the trust. 6.4 Fiduciary Investment Under Section 5 of the Trustees Act 1967, the trustee is required to have regard to the “standard invest - ment criteria”, which requires the trustee to take into account the suitability of the investment or other investments for the trust and the need for diversifica - tion as is appropriate to the circumstances for the trust. Under Section 6 of the Trustees Act 1967, the trustee is also required to obtain and consider proper advice before making the investment or when reviewing the trust investments. The trustee should obtain and con -
sider proper advice from a person whom the trustee believes to be reasonably qualified to provide such advice by their ability or experience of financial or other matters relating to the trust, unless the trus - tee reasonably concludes that it is not necessary or appropriate. These criteria also apply to trust investments that do not yield any income. Trusts in Singapore may hold, run and manage active businesses (indeed, this is commonly a need of high net worth families with their own family businesses). Corporate fiduciaries are generally reluctant to accept active businesses as part of the trust assets. Their consideration lies in their ability to run, manage or even understand such active businesses, and the reputational risks related to the management of these active businesses. 7. Citizenship and Residency 7.1 Requirements for Domicile, Residency and Citizenship The concept of domicile under Singapore law is based on the traditional concept of domicile under English law (see Peters Roger May v Pinder Lillian Gek Lian [2009] 3 SLR(R) 765). The Singapore court recognis - es the domicile of origin (the country of that person’s birth) and the domicile of choice (the country that that person determines to be their permanent home and/ or home for an indefinite period). Citizenship The basic eligibility criterion to obtain Singapore citi - zenship is for the applicant to have been a permanent resident for a minimum amount of time – namely, two years for an adult and three years for a student. The award of Singapore citizenship is entirely discretionary and would include consideration of factors such as: • the amount of time the applicant spent in Singa - pore as a permanent resident; • the applicant’s good character and law-abiding nature;
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