EVIDENCE • REASONS • QUALIFIED CONCLUSIONS
What does the file actually prove?
Eight short prompts to practise the method in Albert Tan Sin Hon’s Insurance-Backed Offshore Liquidity. Say your answer aloud or write a sentence, reveal the commentary, then check the source.
The scenarios are fictional and the commentary is original teaching material. There is no timer or score. The book’s legal cut-off is 1 August 2026.
Keyboard: use Tab or Shift+Tab to move between controls. Activate a focused button with Enter or Space. Moving to another card places focus on its heading.
Card 1 of 8
Read at your own pace
Download the eight cards as JSON. The export includes source references, attribution and separate book and companion licences.
Open any card to see its prompt, commentary and source. You can save this complete HTML file and open it offline. External book links require a connection.
1. Choose the record
Prompt: A bank statement shows a payment into a company account. What can you record immediately, and which legal conclusion still needs its own basis?
Commentary: Record the dated amount, channel and destination in the value-movement record. Record the document and its holder separately. Ownership, beneficial entitlement and authority over the account still require the relevant instruments, facts and governing rules. The statement may support those inquiries without deciding them by itself.
2. Fix the date
Prompt: A lender released security last month. A report says the policy currently secures the facility because it did so at drawdown. What must the report revisit?
Commentary: Check the dated release, the debt position and the rights that survive. Historical collateral support and a present security interest are different propositions. The opinion should identify its assessment date and the effect that the proved release has under the applicable instruments and law.
3. Specify effectiveness
Prompt: An assignment binds its signatories, but a competing claimant is alleged. Is calling the assignment “valid” enough to state the risk?
Commentary: Separate formation, scope and effect between the parties from third-party effect, priority and enforcement. Identify the competing right, material dates and any notice or registration question. The record may support one dimension while leaving another unresolved.
4. State the connection
Prompt: A premium funded a policy, and the policy later supported a company loan. How would you test a claim that the premium payer therefore owns the proceeds?
Commentary: Identify the distinct assets and persons, the alleged connecting act and the evidence supporting or contradicting the claim. Specify the proprietary, contractual, trust, agency or other rule relied on. Economic sequence alone does not supply that missing legal premise.
Chapter 1, printed pp. 35–36; section 1.3; see also 1.6, pp. 40–41
5. Treat the gap honestly
Prompt: An account mandate is missing. May an adviser treat its absence alone as proof that a person secretly controlled the account?
Commentary: Identify the proposition left unresolved, who may hold the mandate and any lawful route to obtain it. Assess other available evidence. An adverse inference needs its own lawful basis; missing material alone does not turn speculation into proof or displace the applicable burden.
6. Calibrate the conclusion
Prompt: Two responsible explanations remain possible because a necessary document is absent. Which evidence label fits, and what does the label change?
Commentary: “Open” describes the unresolved proposition on those facts. State the missing record and any competing explanation. The book’s professional evidence labels calibrate advice; they do not amend a statutory burden, evidential presumption or tribunal standard.
7. Name the decision-maker
Prompt: A file raises a concern and a proposed remedy. What must connect the concern to an operative legal consequence?
Commentary: Identify the source of the right, duty or power; the relevant actor and capacity; required elements; scope and date; competent decision-maker; and required procedure. State the precise consequence the rule permits. Investigation, finding, election and remedy may occur at different stages.
8. Close with a reason
Prompt: An opinion cannot resolve an asserted connection on the present file. What makes its stopping point useful to the next reviewer?
Commentary: State whether the obstacle is factual, legal, procedural, territorial or institutional, and tie the conclusion to the available record and date. Name a specific review trigger, such as production of the mandate or a proved release. An unproved proposition should remain described as unproved.
Source and reuse
Albert Tan Sin Hon, Insurance-Backed Offshore Liquidity: Financial Law, Trust Governance and Regulatory Visibility at the PRC-Hong Kong Interface (University of Groningen Press, 2026), doi:10.21827/6ac3948159a9e.
Book: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Original companion prompts and commentary: CC BY 4.0. Companion code: MIT. Credit Albert Tan Sin Hon’s IBOL Open Learning Companion and identify your changes.
This AI-assisted supplement was commissioned by the author and has not been reviewed by the publisher. It explains the book’s method; it does not verify subsequent law or determine a real dispute.