ENEMY PROPERTY BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

7.52 p.m.

The Minister for Labour and Law (Mr K. M. Byrne): Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

The objects of this Bill are simple and straightforward. The Bill is designed to indemnify those persons who, acting in good faith, dealt with property erroneously assumed to be enemy property and also to provide for the disposal of in, come derived from enemy property, and any copyright of an enemy nature infringed owing to the War. The Bill is based on the United Kingdom Enemy Property Act, 1953, and follows in the main the Federation Enemy Property Ordinance, 1959.

The United Kingdom Act has three main purposes:

1. To indemnify persons who dealt with property erroneously assumed to be enemy property, provided they were acting in good faith and in purported compliance with the Trading with the Enemy legislation. Titles to such property actually sold are validated but the real owner's rights to recover the property are protected when it is still in the custodian's hands or when it was leased to an ostensible owner without payment.

2. It provides for the disposal of income from enemy property. This income is used, first, to pay interest in respect of property erroneously taken into custody. The balance of the income is paid to the exchequer.

3. It provides protection in the case of infringement of German-owned copyright for the use of German-owned patents and designs and for transactions involving reparation materials sent from Germany to the United Kingdom, where no legislative saction or authority existed for such infringement, use or transaction.

The main reason why claims may arise is because of the peculiar difficulty in war time of determining what was enemy property and what was not. The definition of enemy property depended upon the residence of the owner regardless of his own nationality, because if the owner was under enemy control, his property might be available to the enemy. Consequently when owners moved between enemy and neutral countries, or companies operating in enemy territory were controlled by other companies in neutral territory, there was difficulty in determining the status of their property. The rule was adopted that property should be treated as enemy property when there was any doubt as to its true status. In these circumstances, mistakes were inevitable.

While the factors leading to the passing of the United Kingdom Act are similar to those in Singapore, there are other factors to be taken into account. The most important is the fact of the Japanese occupation and the confusion cause by it, together with the considerable amount of legislation passed in Singapore to deal with its after-effects.

Part I of the Bill therefore specifically includes the Custodian of Property Proclamation, the Custodian of Property (Vesting) Ordinance, and the Custodian of Property Ordinance as legislation authorising dealings with enemy property, or property which was assumed to be enemy property. The Bill will provide indemnities for dealings in such property which was in fact not enemy property. It has not been necessary to make special provision in respect of patents in industrial designs, because registers of patents and designs in Singapore are mere extensions of the English registers. Consequently, the protection afforded by the United Kingdom Enemy Property Act against claims by the owners of patents and designs, whose rights were infringed during the War, apply equally to individuals in Singapore and in the United Kingdom. The provisions of the United Kingdom Enemy Property Act relating to copyrights and disclosure of trade secrets have been included in the Bill.

In the United Kingdom when property was erroneously taken into custody and later restored to the owner, interest was paid to cover the period of seizure by the Custodian. With regard to Singapore, however, it is proposed that interest should be paid only from the date of resumption of Civil Government on the 1st April, 1946, or the date when the property was taken into custody, whichever is the later. This proposal is in line with the policy adopted in connection with the moratorium. During the Occupation and until Civil Government was resumed, it was not possible to administer enemy property nor to return to owners property erroneously taken under control. Just as some of the loss caused by the Occupation was placed upon the owners as a result of the moratorium, so some of the loss in respect of property seized by the Custodian should also fall on the owners. It is proposed that interest shall be payable, following the United Kingdom precedent, only on property that was never enemy property at any time. Interest on the property of allies and others taken into custody when their countries were occupied by the enemy is not payable to the owners. The reason for this decision is that, in very many instances, the amount payable would be trivial and the work of calculating the interest for varying periods on small but numerous sums would be disproportionately costly.

I should like to draw special attention to a major deviation from the United Kingdom Act. Clause 12 (2) of the Bill provides that where property is taken into custody as non-enemy property under the Custodian of Property Ordinance and the proceeds of the realisation paid into the War Damage Fund, such payment was not to be disturbed even though the true owner may be able to establish his claim to the property. Clause 12 (3) applies the same rule to property certified as enemy property under section 24 of the Custodian of Enemy Property Ordinance where the identity of the owner could not be established at the date of taking it into custody. These two clauses are necessary in order to support one of the chief aims of the Custodian of Property Ordinance, which was to set a time limit on the making of claims on property whose ownership could not be ascertained as a result of the conditions created by the occupation. While on the one hand hardship was suffered by owners unable to establish their claims within the time limit, on the other hand a substantial proportion of their number received compensation from the War Damage Fund into which had been paid proceeds realised from their property.

Mr Speaker, Sir, I beg to move.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole Assembly.

Assembly immediately resolved itself into a Committee on the Bill. -[Mr Byrne].

[Mr Speaker in the Chair]

8.00 p.m.

Clauses 1 to 5 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 -

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, I move,

In page 8, line 18, to leave out "(2)" and insert

It is a typographical error.

Amendment agreed to.

The Chairman: There is a Note:

In page 8, marginal note, to leave out "3786/39" and insert "3876/39".

That will be done.

Mr Byrne: Mr Speaker, Sir, I move,

In page 8, line 24, after "Fund", to insert "or the general revenue of Singapore".

This is obvious, Mr Speaker, Sir. There was at that time no Consolidated Fund.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 6, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 7 to 12 inclusive ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Bill reported with amendments; read the Third time and passed.