On 14 February 2022, TSMP Law Corporation head of employment and labour Ian Lim was featured in a Valentine’s Day column published by the Straits Times about the dos and donts in workplace romance.

Ian said that in Singapore, it is mostly global companies – operating out of territories with longer histories of dealing with sexual harassment issues – that have express policies to prohibit relationships, especially within the same geographic office.

He also said that the policies tend to be carried over from their international guidelines, and are not aimed at policing morality. He added “They are more concerned with conflicts of interest. So, whether you’re married or whether you’re single, it doesn’t matter under such policies, you still can’t do it.”

“Some companies do not prohibit relationships between colleagues who don’t work together, and only require you to declare the relationships. If so, and if you have had 10 such relationships and you declared all 10 of them, then you would have done nothing wrong,” he said.