This comprehensive book offers a rigorous analysis of the legal debates, approaches and practice-related issues surrounding financial advice and investor protection. Despite widespread recognition of the importance of financial inclusion more broadly construed, recent financial crises have highlighted deficits in retail investor protection – this book informs the development of robust yet adaptable frameworks to protect investors, including effective enforcement and dispute resolution.

Divided into three thematic parts, Financial Advice and Investor Protection begins with a holistic discussion of the subject, including an examination of the impact of relatively recent technical innovations such as robo-advice. The second part evaluates the role of private law in achieving investor protection, considering in particular how tort law, contract law and equity allocate risk and liability for investment advice. Finally, the book outlines the investor protection frameworks in the jurisdictions of six significant financial centres.

This book will be a crucial read for various stakeholders in the investor protection debate including practitioners advising clients who work in this field, particularly across several of the jurisdictions covered, as well as policymakers interested in the development of law and regulation in this area. Scholars and students of financial law will also benefit from its comprehensive and critical treatment of the subject.

Critical Acclaim

''Financial Advice and Investor Protection, edited by Sandra Booysen of NUS Law Faculty, goes to the heart of law’s concern with finance: the investment decision. This excellent book covers every important angle of the investment decision: information provided, duties of advisors, investor skill and status-based regulation, and available remedies. The examination takes place with local expertise in six major jurisdictions, and the regulatory framework is then reevaluated for the challenges of Fintech and increasing automation.''
– David Donald, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Contributors

Contributors: Katy Barnett, Hugh Beale, Sandra Booysen, Mercer Bullard, Yaru Chia, Carrie Ding Chunyan, John Ho, Gerard McMeel, Dora Neo, Georgia Palmer, Jeannie Marie Paterson, Keith Stanton, Christian Witting, Alex Zhou Qin

Contents

Contents:

Foreword by Peter Ellinger xiv
Preface xvi

PART I INTRODUCTION
1 Financial advice and investor protection: a comparative overview 2
Sandra Booysen
2 Robo financial advice: the new frontier 19
Yaru Chia

PART II THE PRIVATE LAW
3 Tort law as regulation in the financial industry 39
Christian Witting
4 Financial advice and the duty to advise 64
Sandra Booysen
5 Non-reliance clauses, entire agreement clauses and contractual estoppel 84
Hugh Beale QC FBA with Georgia Palmer
6 Banks, financial intermediaries and fiduciary duties 106
Gerard McMeel QC
7 Causation, remoteness and calculation of damages for financial mis-selling 130
Katy Barnett

PART III A JURISDICTIONAL PERSPECTIVE
8 From disclosure to design: the Australian regulatory response to mis-selling to consumer investors by
financial services providers 165
Jeannie Marie Paterson
9 China: confronting a growing wealth management sector 190
Alex Zhou Qin
10 Hong Kong: balancing laissez-faire and investor protection 214
Carrie Ding Chunyan and John Ho
11 Singapore: boosting regulation to protect vulnerable investors 237
Dora Neo
12 The United Kingdom: the primacy of regulation in protecting the retail investor 261
Keith Stanton
13 The United States of America: shifting conduct standards for retail investment advice 284
Mercer Bullard
Bibliography

Index