Instrument and comparison scope
Made on 21 December and gazetted on 31 December 2015, the regulations commenced on 3 January 2016 and revoked the earlier Identical Names Rules (R 1). Regulation 2 covers names of LLPs, LPs, corporations and registered businesses, reserved names and the other company, foreign-company and partnership names specified in sections 19A(1)(b), (1)(c), (2) and (3). The PDF is the original instrument.
Initial article and entity suffixes
Ignore The only where it is the first word. At the end of a name ignore Berhad/Bhd, Limited/Ltd, Limited Liability Partnership/LLP, Limited Partnership/LP, Private/Pte, Public Accounting Corporation/PAC and Sendirian/Sdn. Position therefore matters: the rule does not say to erase these words wherever they occur.
All other disregarded endings
Subject to the corporate-partner exception, disregard these endings: Asia; Asia Pacific; Associates; company or and company; corporation; Group; Holding or Holdings; Incorporated; International; Partner or Partners; Partnership or Partnerships; Singapore; South Asia; South East Asia; Trading; Worldwide; .co; .com; .edu; .gov; .net; .org; and .sg. The list is a name-comparison rule, not a ban on using those terms.
Equivalent expressions and presentation differences
Also disregard expressions the Registrar considers intended to represent the ignored words, plural versions, letter type and case, accents, spacing, brackets, parentheses and punctuation. Treat & as and. Thus changing capitalisation, adding punctuation or relying on a plural does not by itself produce a different name under these rules.
The narrow corporate-partner consent exception
The generic/geographic/domain endings in paragraph 2(2)(c), and expressions representing them under (d)(ii), are not disregarded if the relevant corporation will become a partner on registration, or is already a partner on a name-change application, and consents to the LLP using the name. A relevant corporation operates under a name that would be identical after applying the normal rules. This does not disapply the other rules for The, entity suffixes, plurals or formatting; it is not a general consent exemption for unrelated applicants.
Official source
This article independently explains the substantive contents of the official PDF, including the relevant conditions, procedures and annexes. The linked document remains the authoritative source for its original wording, and later changes should be checked separately.
Read the official PDF ↗