SINGAPORE — A Singapore court has ordered Bloomberg and one of its reporters to pay S$230,000 (US$177,874) each to two ministers who had sued them for defamation over an article referencing their property transactions.Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng last year sued the news organization and its reporter Low De Wei for damages over a 2024 article titled “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy”, which had mentioned their property deals.In a judgment released on Tuesday, Justice Audrey Lim found that the December 2024 article about secretive Good Class Bungalow (GCB) transactions had defamed the ministers.She rejected Bloomberg’s argument that the article did not imply any wrongdoing and had citedthe ministers only as examples of a broader trend of non-caveated GCB transactions.Instead, she said when read as a whole the piece implied wrongdoing by the ministers as it also mentioned secrecy and money laundering.Justice Lim also rejected Bloomberg’s reliance on a public interest defence known as the Reynolds defence in UK law, saying it is not part of Singapore law.The piece looked at the ways in which some wealthy buyers in Singapore obscured their purchases of Good Class Bungalows — a category of multimillion-dollar mansions in Singapore — such as by using shell companies which hide their identities.It reported that Shanmugam, the Coordinating Minister for National Security and former law minister, had sold a bungalow for S$88 million ($68m; £51m) to an unnamed buyer using a trust.The piece also noted that Tan, the Minister for Manpower, had bought a Good Class Bungalow for around S$27 million, citing him as one example among a list of other public figures who had bought luxury estates through an arrangement that did not conceal their identities.During the trial in April, the minister and their lawyers argued that the mention of the ministers in the article unfairly associated their property deals with those covered in the rest of the article, which included concerns about transparency and money laundering.Shanmugam also argued that the article had been crafted deliberately to suggest he was involved in shady deals and possibly money laundering.Bloomberg and Low argued that the story did not imply any wrongdoing by the ministers, but rather listed them as “newsworthy examples” of bungalow deals.The ministers had given the piece the “most defamatory” reading, as opposed to what an ordinary reader would do, Bloomberg’s lawyers said.They added that the article had gone through extensive research and verification, and its reporter had sought comment from the ministers multiple times.Days after the article was published in December 2024, the ministers announced that they would take legal action.Separately, Singaporean authorities ordered Bloomberg to put up a “correction notice” on the article, under its Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).Introduced by the government in 2019 to tackle misinformation, the anti-fake news law mandates correction notices to be tagged onto online content deemed by authorities as false – though some argue that it is often invoked to target criticisms of the government.Bloomberg complied with the POFMA order but added a note to say that while it was required to publish the government’s note “under threat of sanction”, it stood by its reporting.POFMA correction notices were also issued to news outlets that had either reshared the Bloomberg story or published commentaries on it.Shanmugam and Tan also succesfully filed a defamation suit against the editor-in-chief of local independent outlet The Online Citizen, over a commentary he had published about the Bloomberg piece.Singapore’s leaders have long been successful in suing its critics and foreign news outlets for defamation. Such actions, they maintain, are to protect their reputations – though critics say they in fact stifle political dissent.In 2009, the Far Eastern Economic Review, a now-defunct Asian business magazine, was forced to pay more than S$400,000 after a court ruled that one of its articles had defamed then prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father – also Singapore’s first prime minister – Lee Kuan Yew.The Economist and the New York Times are among other foreign outlets that have been ordered to pay damages in defamation suits.SINGAPORE — A Singapore court has ordered Bloomberg and one of its reporters to pay S$230,000 (US$177,874) each to two ministers who had sued them for defamation over an article referencing their property transactions.Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng last year sued the news organization and its reporter Low De Wei for damages over a 2024 article titled “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy”, which had mentioned their property deals.In a judgment released on Tuesday, Justice Audrey Lim found that the December 2024 article about secretive Good Class Bungalow (GCB) transactions had defamed the ministers.She rejected Bloomberg’s argument that the article did not imply any wrongdoing and had citedthe ministers only as examples of a broader trend of non-caveated GCB transactions.Instead, she said when read as a whole the piece implied wrongdoing by the ministers as it also mentioned secrecy and money laundering.Justice Lim also rejected Bloomberg’s reliance on a public interest defence known as the Reynolds defence in UK law, saying it is not part of Singapore law.The piece looked at the ways in which some wealthy buyers in Singapore obscured their purchases of Good Class Bungalows — a category of multimillion-dollar mansions in Singapore — such as by using shell companies which hide their identities.It reported that Shanmugam, the Coordinating Minister for National Security and former law minister, had sold a bungalow for S$88 million ($68m; £51m) to an unnamed buyer using a trust.The piece also noted that Tan, the Minister for Manpower, had bought a Good Class Bungalow for around S$27 million, citing him as one example among a list of other public figures who had bought luxury estates through an arrangement that did not conceal their identities.During the trial in April, the minister and their lawyers argued that the mention of the ministers in the article unfairly associated their property deals with those covered in the rest of the article, which included concerns about transparency and money laundering.Shanmugam also argued that the article had been crafted deliberately to suggest he was involved in shady deals and possibly money laundering.Bloomberg and Low argued that the story did not imply any wrongdoing by the ministers, but rather listed them as “newsworthy examples” of bungalow deals.The ministers had given the piece the “most defamatory” reading, as opposed to what an ordinary reader would do, Bloomberg’s lawyers said.They added that the article had gone through extensive research and verification, and its reporter had sought comment from the ministers multiple times.Days after the article was published in December 2024, the ministers announced that they would take legal action.Separately, Singaporean authorities ordered Bloomberg to put up a “correction notice” on the article, under its Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).Introduced by the government in 2019 to tackle misinformation, the anti-fake news law mandates correction notices to be tagged onto online content deemed by authorities as false – though some argue that it is often invoked to target criticisms of the government.Bloomberg complied with the POFMA order but added a note to say that while it was required to publish the government’s note “under threat of sanction”, it stood by its reporting.POFMA correction notices were also issued to news outlets that had either reshared the Bloomberg story or published commentaries on it.Shanmugam and Tan also succesfully filed a defamation suit against the editor-in-chief of local independent outlet The Online Citizen, over a commentary he had published about the Bloomberg piece.Singapore’s leaders have long been successful in suing its critics and foreign news outlets for defamation. Such actions, they maintain, are to protect their reputations – though critics say they in fact stifle political dissent.In 2009, the Far Eastern Economic Review, a now-defunct Asian business magazine, was forced to pay more than S$400,000 after a court ruled that one of its articles had defamed then prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father – also Singapore’s first prime minister – Lee Kuan Yew.The Economist and the New York Times are among other foreign outlets that have been ordered to pay damages in defamation suits.
