The Youth Factor

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it unprecedented challenges, some of which demanded close professional attention. Or at least the committed energies and burgeoning talents of a group of young students.

- Marc Almagro

“One of the main problems that arose at the onset of COVID-19 and throughout circuit breaker was the inability for individuals and businesses to fulfil their contractual obligations, arising from the halt in normal business and/or social activities,” says Anders Seah, founder of COV-AID, a team of dedicated law students from the National University of Singapore, which seeks to provide layman-accessible legal information on a single platform (www.nus-covaid. com).

“For example, in the events and tourism industry, many activities had to be cancelled due to the restriction on social gatherings. In response to these problems, the Singapore Government introduced the COVID-19 (Temporary Measures) Act 2020. This legislation is particularly important because it grants temporary relief measures to parties of certain contracts who are unable to fulfil their contractual obligations due to COVID-19,” adds co-founder Mark Tang.

In addition, many SME tenants also faced huge difficulty in meeting their rental obligations due to COVID-19 and the social distancing laws, they point out. Under normal circumstances, a failure to pay rent could lead to negative consequences such as late payment fees and even eviction. To address this problem, the government introduced the Rental Relief Framework which seeks to co-share rental obligations between the government, landlords and SME tenants.