ABSTRACT

The derivative action is widely acknowledged to be an important part of corporate law and governance. Over a quarter century after the statutory derivative action landed in Singapore and almost five years after reforms extended it to listed companies, the time is ripe to investigate a fundamental question: what is the reality of Singapore’s statutory derivative action? Drawing on unpublished data on Singapore companies and a hand-collected dataset of all publicly available judgments on statutory derivative actions in Singapore from 1993 to 2018, my study reveals that litigation rates are generally low. This article explains why derivative actions remain rare and unlikely for listed companies in Singapore, and also offers insights into how context-specific, non-financial factors affect shareholder litigation. The statutory derivative action plays a distinctive and valuable role in closely-held companies – in spite of poor financial incentives to sue, and the availability of alternative remedies.

摘要

衍生诉讼被公认为是公司法和治理的重要组成部分。法定衍生工具行动在新加坡登陆四分之一世纪后，以及将其扩展至上市公司近五年后，现在是时候探讨一个基本问题：新加坡法定衍生工具行动的现实是什么？我的研究利用1993年至2018年新加坡未公开的公司数据和所有公开可获得的有关法定衍生诉讼的公开判决的手工收集的数据集，发现诉讼率普遍较低。本文解释了为什么衍生品诉讼对于新加坡上市公司而言仍然很少见且不太可能，并且还提供了针对特定情况的非金融因素如何影响股东诉讼的见解。