Mischaracterisation of yellow-highlight convention in MAS amendment notices

2. Mischaracterisation of yellow-highlight convention in MAS amendment notices

• Question (paraphrased to protect IP): In MAS Notice 637 (Amendment) 2024, what do the yellow-highlighted passages signify, and will they appear in the final consolidated version of the Notice?
• Source regulation: MAS Notice 637 (Amendment) 2024 (Regulator portal: https://www.mas.gov.sg)
• What AI assistants typically say: Multiple AI tools gave similar incorrect responses. One described yellow highlighting as a generic visual aid used to draw attention to defined terms, cross-references, or passages the reader should review carefully. Another characterised yellow highlights as editorial annotations explaining the nature or purpose of tracked insertions and deletions. Neither response identified the specific drafting convention that yellow highlighting actually signals in MAS amendment notices.
• What the regulator actually says: In MAS Notice 637 amendment PDFs, yellow highlighting is a specific drafting convention used to mark provisions that carry a different effective date from the notice's general operative date — a distinction with direct legal significance for when compliance obligations attach.
• Why the AI went wrong: Both AI tools substituted a plausible generic explanation for a precise, jurisdiction-specific drafting convention. Because yellow highlighting is used in different ways across different regulatory systems and document types, the AI drew on broad inference rather than the specific MAS practice — producing an answer that sounds reasonable but misstates the operative meaning of the marking.
• Cited source(s):