CHAPTER 6 · 90-MINUTE SEMINAR
Who can assemble the decision file?
Companion to Albert Tan Sin Hon, Insurance-Backed Offshore Liquidity (University of Groningen Press, 2026).
Reading: Chapter 6, printed pp. 193–226; 6.1–6.3 and 6.8–6.11. Open the published source.
Book legal cut-off: 1 August 2026. This seminar explains the edition and does not verify subsequent law.
Learning goals
- Define structural legibility for a specified decision.
- Distinguish substantive, evidential and institutional gaps.
- Identify lawful collection, disclosure, receipt and use.
90-minute seminar
- 10 minutes: Recall the assigned reading and define the decision to be made.
- 20 minutes: Discuss the reading guide and test its distinctions against the text.
- 25 minutes: Work in pairs on the constructed exercise, recording missing evidence.
- 20 minutes: Compare reasons with the facilitator commentary and challenge an inference.
- 10 minutes: Debate the challenge question using a specified rule or evidence gap.
- 5 minutes: Complete the exit task and identify a source to revisit.
Reading guide
A complete factual picture is rarely held by one institution. The book asks whether an authorised decision-maker can lawfully assemble, test and correct the facts needed for its decision. This is more specific than a general demand for transparency. A reporting classification has a purpose within its own regime. Its transmission does not automatically make it proof of ownership or authority for another purpose. Reform depends on diagnosis: harmful conduct beyond the adequate reach of existing substantive rules, facts that cannot be proved and fragmented institutional responsibility call for different responses. The substantive-gap diagnosis requires a defensible account of why the uncovered conduct should be regulated.
Fictional classroom exercise
An insurer holds policy records, a lender holds the credit file and a trustee holds consent documents. Each has met its stated retention duty. A later decision requires all three records, but the case supplies no entitlement to compel or combine them. Diagnose the possible gap and design a narrowly framed information route. Include correction and contestability.
Facilitator commentary
The facts suggest a possible institutional allocation problem, subject to checking existing production, cooperation and disclosure routes. State who needs which facts for what decision. Identify the sender’s authority to disclose, the recipient’s authority to receive and use, verification requirements and safeguards for confidentiality, privilege and personal data. An evidential problem may coexist if the records cannot be authenticated. No general right to combine all data follows merely from its usefulness.
Challenge for discussion
Could greater information sharing make a decision less reliable if a field loses its original legal meaning?
Exit task
Describe one reform in terms of actor, information, purpose, correction and lawful authority.
Source and reuse
Book DOI: 10.21827/6ac3948159a9e. Book licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Original companion teaching material: CC BY 4.0.
This fictional exercise is an AI-assisted teaching supplement commissioned by the author, separately prepared and not publisher-reviewed. Check current primary sources before applying law to a real matter.