The English common law tort of passing off came into the spotlight in 2015 with the UK Supreme Court case of Starbucks (HK) Ltd v British Sky Broadcasting Group settling the current position regarding the question of the territorial scope of goodwill. This article undertakes a comparative study of the tort with Section 18 of the Thai Civil and Commercial Code which, it argues, has been interpreted by the Thai Supreme Court to offer a materially similar remedy to the English tort in two important conceptual aspects: the requirement for misrepresentation and the so-called “hard line” approach to the territorial scope of goodwill, as affirmed by Starbucks. The analysis carries important implications for comparative lawyers and legislators in both the UK and Thailand, and challenges assumptions based on a simplistic categorization of Thailand as a civil law jurisdiction.

This article seeks to utilize the existing literature on referendums to discuss the current situation in Hong Kong in order to make some theoretical and practical contributions to the field of constitutional studies. Theoretically, it attempts to situate and analyse Hong Kong’s current situation within Professor Tierney’s influential framework on constitutional referendums in order to further develop the constitutional theory in this area. Practically, it analyses, through comparative study, whether (and if so, how) referendums might provide a mechanism through which Hong Kong’s constitutional debate could productively move forward. It concludes by reiterating aspects of the Hong Kong experience that have aligned with, and further contributed to the constitutional theory on referendums and representative democracy. Moreover, it recommends that the Hong Kong Government begin consultations towards the tabling of legislation for a non-binding advisory referendum to be developed in accordance with the lessons learned from the jurisdictions discussed throughout the article.