No. S 186
Business Registration Act
(Chapter 32)
Business Registration (Identical Names) Regulations 2009
In exercise of the powers conferred by section 13(10) of the Business Registration Act, the Minister for Finance hereby makes the following regulations:
Citation and commencement
1.  These Regulations may be cited as the Business Registration (Identical Names) Regulations 2009 and shall come into operation on 1st May 2009.
Identical names
2.—(1)  For the purposes of section 13(1)(b) and (c) of the Act —
(a)in determining whether one name is identical to another, the following shall be disregarded:
(i)“The”, where it is the first word of the name;
(ii)“Private”, “Pte”, “Sendirian”, “Sdn”, “Limited”, “Ltd”, “Berhad”, “Bhd”, “Limited Liability Partnership” and “LLP”;
(iii)the following words or expressions where they appear at the end of the name, except where the business and corporation concerned are related to each other:
“company”, “and company”, “corporation”, “Incorporated”, “Asia”, “Asia Pacific”, “International”, “Singapore”, “South Asia”, “South East Asia” and “Worldwide”;
(iv)any word or expression which, in the opinion of the Registrar, is intended to represent any word or expression in sub-paragraph (iii), except where the business and corporation concerned are related to each other;
(v)the plural version of the name;
(vi)the type and case of letters, accents, spacing between letters, brackets, parenthesis and punctuation mark; and
(b)the symbol “&” shall have the same meaning as the word “and”.
(2)  For the purposes of paragraph (1)(a)(iii) and (iv), a business is related to a corporation if the corporation is the person carrying on that business.
Mediation
3.  The Registrar may, with a view to resolving any dispute over the use of a name, refer the persons referred to in section 13(1) to (4) of the Act to mediation before giving any direction under that section.
Revocation
4.  The Business Registration (Identical Names) Rules (R 1) are revoked.

Made this 28th day of April 2009.

TEO MING KIAN
Permanent Secretary,
Ministry of Finance,
Singapore.
[ACRA0501B/F200; AG/LEG/SL/32/2003/1 Vol. 1]