Business Law: A Comparative Study of Australia and Singapore

This report analyzes the relationship between Australia and Singapore laws in the context of business law, including contract law, intellectual property laws, and employment law.

Legal Collaborative
Research Project

Contents
INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..............................................................................................................................................3
Federal law of Australia and Singapore...................................................................................................3
Intellectual property laws........................................................................................................................3
Contract law............................................................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION...........................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
The business law can be defined as the legislation which encompasses all laws which
dictate as to how the businesses can be formed and run. It governs how to start up a business,
manage, sell or close any entity of business and each of the organization is bound to follow it so
that it do not face any hardship or legal consequences which may affect its goodwill. It is broad
field which comprises of various legislations such as contract law, intellectual property,
employment law, etc. (Sharma & Pfitzner, (2018)). This report will deal with the salient aspects
of the law which relates to employment, contract, and intellectual property laws. It also analyses
the relationship between Australia and Singapore laws so that the business can be done.
MAIN BODY
Federal law of Australia and Singapore
There are three levels of the government in Australia which works together in order to
provide services to its citizens. These three levels include Federal Parliament which makes law
for whole of the Australia, territory Parliament which makes laws for particular territory or state
and local council which makes law for a particular district or region. Section 51 and 52 of
Constitution provides for the law making powers of Federal Parliament. It provides 39 areas over
which federal parliament can enact the law which includes immigration, defense, taxation,
currency, etc.
In Singapore, its legal system is based on English common law system. There are major
areas of the law such as contract, equity, property law, administrative and tort law which are
judge made law but there are many aspects which are being modified to some of the extent by
the statutes. The judges refer to the relevant Singaporean cases and English case laws wherein
the issue pertains to traditional common law. There are three sources of law which includes
legislation, judicial precedents and the customs (Yang, (2018)).
Intellectual property laws
In Australia

These are the rights which are provided to creators of work for protection of their
invention. Every country has different regulations for IPR. In Australia, IPR is governed by IP
Australia which is the government agency that is meant especially for the IP rights and the laws.
It provides patent, trademark, design, copyright and domain name protection to the people and
businesses so that they can carry out their functions effectively. In copyright, there is automatic
protection given to the work under the law and no registration is required and time period of 50
years. Although some exemptions are present in making use of the copyrighted materials. For
design protection, registration is required to be made with Designs Office of IP, Australia. The
time period is maximum of 15 years. For domain name, the internet address which ends with .au
is registered in Australia and is regulated by .au Domain name administration (Forsyth, (2021)).
In Singapore
It has the comprehensive legal framework and the supporting infrastructure for the
protection of patents, trademarks, copyrights and other kinds of intellectual property. The Patent
Act of Singapore is based on UK law which also protects the patent internationally under PCT.
Once registered, it can be used, sold or licensed. Then is Copyright Act which protects original
work such as sheet music, computer programs, paintings and performances. Then is trademark
act wherein trademarks can be protected and alternatively, protection can be seeked without
making registration of it under common law right of the passing off (Sheldon & Thornthwaite,
(2020)). Patents are protected for 20 years, trademarks for 10 years, copyright for lifetime of
author plus 70 years and designs are protected for 5 years and be renewed for maximum 15 years
with 5 years at a time.
Contract law
In Singapore
Under the law of Singapore, the contract can be formed when one party makes an offer
and other accepts it, there is also consideration passed between parties and the parties must have
legal intention to create the relation and a presumption is taken in the commercial contracts that
parties have legal intention while in social contracts, opposite presumption is raised (Sivani,
(2019)).
In Australia

The contract law of Australia is not codified nor it is governed by single legislation,
rather it is regulated by the common law, and overseen by courts. The basic principle of this
legislation is freedom of contract wherein the parties are at liberty to strike any bargain they
want.
Relationship of laws between Singapore and Australia
In Singapore and Australia, when discussing about contract law, Singapore has the
statutory piece of law which provides for the essential requirements to contract while in
Australia, there is liberty govern to parties to bargain their own terms and both the laws of
countries are derived from English common law.
For intellectual property laws, both countries have separate legislations for each IP but
they vary with their term of protection. For instance, copyright protection in Australia is 50 years
and there is automatic protection while in Singapore, the time is lifetime of author plus 70 years
and there is no automatic protection (Vitis, (2020)).
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from this that the business legislation governs the regulation on businesses
in the country and comprises of various laws on each subject. Both Australia and Singapore has
separate laws and each have their own flexibility while dealing with disputes or issues relating to
business or industry.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Forsyth, A. (2021). ‘Prova di Solidarietà’: How Effectively are Unions and Emerging Collective
Worker Representatives Responding to New Business Models in Australia and Italy?.
In The Collective Dimensions of Employment Relations (pp. 205-238). Palgrave
Macmillan, Cham.
Mohyuddin, S., and et. al., (2021). The challenge of skilled expatriates from the Indian
subcontinent losing intellectual capital in Australia: resolving the crisis of
habitus. Journal of Intellectual Capital.
Sharma, R., & Pfitzner, D. (2018). Microbusiness in Australia: Driver of Growth or a Poor
Cousin? Lessons from the International Experience. In 3rd International Conference
FOBE 2018.
Sheldon, P., & Thornthwaite, L. (2020). Employer and employer association matters in Australia
in 2019. Journal of Industrial Relations. 62(3). 403-424.
Sivani, K. M. S. (2019). Critical Analysis of the Effects of Regulations under Competition Law
on Mergers and Acquisitions: A Comparison of the India, EU, US and UK Laws. Journal
of Corporate Governance and International Business Law. 2(2).
Vitis, L., (2020). Private, hidden and obscured: Image-based sexual abuse in Singapore. Asian
journal of criminology. 15(1). pp.25-43.
Yang, D., (2018). Evaluating the Criminalisation of HIV/AIDS Non-Disclosure Laws in
Singapore. Sing. L. Rev.. 36. p.136.