Employment and Labour Law's legal and international news

The Government is limiting entry approvals for work pass holders entering Singapore from Tuesday 11 May onwards

Any travel of work pass holders outside Singapore is strongly discouraged for the time being. 

Lisbeth Lanvers-Shah and Peggy Wong provide an update on the new measures.

[Income Tax] – Certain foreign senior executives, scientific or technical directors may qualify as high-level foreign talents and as such are eligible for a tax subsidy on their personal income

Check your eligibility with Shunshan HE and Sylvie Savoie.

Applications for the year 2020 can be submitted between July and August 2021. Detailed evaluation criteria will be listed by future guidelines.

In view of the Heightened Alert in Singapore, border measures have been tightened, the length of the stay-at-home notice for travellers has been extended and the Safe Management Measures for workplaces have been tightened.

Our Singapore team has compiled a brief on the new measures and requirements.

[Income Tax] – With the 1^st of January 2022 quickly approaching, many employees are concerned about the potential abolishment of the current regime that allows for some benefits-in-kind to be exempt from tax.

Will this regime actually be terminated as of 2022?

How should we prepare?

Sylvie Savoie and He Shunshan answer your questions and share with you our analysis of the situation.

Transversal reform initiated by Law 11/2020 on job creation, or Omnibus Law. The Indonesian government promulgated on February 2, 2021, several implementing regulations, outlining new applicable rules to Indonesian employees (the “Corpus Omnibus”). 

Our article focuses on the substantial changes brought by the reform, compared to the previous regulation. 

[Labour Law] – WeChat is the most popular social network in China. It is used daily as a professional communication and management tool. It is also regularly used to manage attendance, send information and contracts, organise meetings, hold online meetings, etc. 

One of the recurring questions being asked is whether all of these WeChat conversations may be submitted to a court as part of a labour dispute and if so, what conditions must be met in order for these exchanges to be considered admissible evidence by the judges. 

Along with the answer to this question, Gao Jing provides some recommendations on using We Chat content as evidence, on cases where an employee uses WeChat exchanges against you and, more generally, on good practice in using WeChat professionally.

Work pass policies for Dependant’s Pass (DP) holders who wish to work in Singapore are set to change starting 1 May 2021.

In the following brief, our team in Singapore explains the new system.

[Employment Law] – The phenomena of employees abusing the litigation rights granted by Chinese laws and regulations to obtain “personal benefits” seems to have been regularly increasing. 

Isabel Moga Rella and Ding Yu present a case where a company dismissed an employee who had failed to meet the Company’s requirements in the first two months of her probation period during her subsequent during her sick leave.

In this case, the labor arbitrator recognized this employee had filed more than 3 labor arbitration proceedings with the same labor arbitration committee in the previous 2 years, all the cases having more or less the same “scenario”. 

Our brief presents the case, as well as recent measures authorities have set up to limit “bad faith” arbitration. Furthermore, our experts provide advice and tips for employers to avoid falling into the traps of abusive employees.

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) imposed new conditions on Employment Pass (EP) applications for overseas Intra-Corporate Transferees (ITC) meeting the requirements of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or an applicable Free Trade Agreement (FTA).