A Singapore court has ruled against Bloomberg in a high-profile defamation case. The court ordered Bloomberg and one of its reporters to pay S$460,000 ($356,000; £266,000) to two government ministers. The ministers had sued the outlet over an article referencing their property transactions.
Ministers K Shanmugam and Tan See Leng sued Bloomberg and reporter Low De Wei last year. Their case centred on a 2024 article that mentioned their property deals. Bloomberg said the piece did not imply any wrongdoing and had cited the ministers only as examples of a broader trend. The judge disagreed. She found that when read as a whole, the article implied wrongdoing by the ministers, since it also referenced secrecy and money laundering.
Bloomberg “Very Disappointed” but Will Comply
Bloomberg News editor-in-chief John Micklethwait responded to the Bloomberg defamation ruling in a published statement. He said the outlet was very disappointed but would respect the decision. Bloomberg had argued at trial that its reporting was accurate and served an important public interest, he said. He maintained that the ministers had placed an extremely strained interpretation on what he called a solid story.
What the Bloomberg Article Said
The piece, titled “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy,” examined how wealthy buyers in Singapore obscured their purchases of Good Class Bungalows. These are a category of multimillion dollar mansions. Some buyers used shell companies to conceal their identities, the article reported.
It stated that Shanmugam, the Coordinating Minister for National Security and former law minister, had sold a bungalow for S$88 million to an unnamed buyer using a trust. The article also noted that Tan, the Minister for Manpower, had bought a Good Class Bungalow for around S$27 million. He was cited as one example among several public figures who purchased luxury estates through non-caveated deals, arrangements that make transactions harder to trace.
The article was removed from Bloomberg’s website following Tuesday’s verdict, as the court ordered.
Why the Ministers Sued Bloomberg
The ministers announced legal action just days after the article’s December 2024 publication. During the April trial, their lawyers argued that linking the ministers to broader concerns about transparency and money laundering unfairly tainted their property deals by association. Shanmugam went further, arguing the article had specifically targeted him.
Bloomberg and Low pushed back. They argued the story did not imply wrongdoing, but had simply listed the ministers as newsworthy examples of bungalow transactions. Bloomberg’s lawyers said the ministers had adopted the most defamatory possible reading of the piece rather than the interpretation an ordinary reader would take. They also noted the article had undergone extensive research and verification, and that the reporter had sought comment from the ministers multiple times.
Judge Cites “Grave Assertions” in Defamation Ruling
High Court judge Audrey Lim explained her reasoning in the ruling. She said the natural and ordinary meaning of the article was that the ministers had taken advantage of existing regulations to deal their properties in a non-transparent manner. They did so, she found, to avoid scrutiny that might extend to the possibility of money laundering. Lim described these as grave assertions that directly impugned the ministers’ personal integrity, character and professional reputation, a factor she cited in awarding damages.
Correction Notice Also Ordered
Separate from the Bloomberg defamation case, Singaporean authorities ordered the outlet to publish a correction notice under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA). Singapore introduced the law in 2019 to combat misinformation, though critics argue it is sometimes used to target government criticism. Bloomberg complied but added a note saying that while it was required to publish the correction under threat of sanction, it stood by its reporting. Authorities also issued POFMA correction notices to other outlets that reshared or commented on the Bloomberg story.
Shanmugam and Tan separately won a defamation suit against the editor-in-chief of independent outlet The Online Citizen over a commentary on the Bloomberg article.
Part of a Broader Pattern in Singapore
Singapore’s leaders have a long history of successfully suing critics and foreign news outlets for defamation. They maintain such actions protect their reputations, though critics say they stifle political dissent. In 2009, the now defunct Far Eastern Economic Review was ordered to pay more than S$400,000 after a court ruled one of its articles had defamed then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, Singapore’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew. The Economist and The New York Times are among other foreign outlets previously ordered to pay damages in similar suits.
