Singapore Court Orders Bloomberg to Pay $356,000 in Defamation Damages to Two Ministers

A Singapore court has ordered Bloomberg and one of its reporters to pay S$460,000 (US$356,000; £266,000) in damages to two Singaporean ministers after finding they had been defamed by a 2024 article about luxury property transactions.

The lawsuit was brought by Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam and Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng, who argued that Bloomberg’s report unfairly linked their property deals to allegations of secrecy and money laundering.

Bloomberg had maintained throughout the case that the article did not suggest any wrongdoing by the ministers and that they were included merely as examples within a broader report on Singapore’s luxury property market.

Following Tuesday’s ruling, Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait expressed disappointment with the decision.

“We are very disappointed by this ruling but we will of course respect it.”

He added:

“We argued at trial that our reporting was accurate and served an important public interest, and we continue to believe that the ministers have imposed an extremely strained meaning on what was a solid story.”

Article focused on luxury property transactions

The disputed article, titled “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy,” examined how some wealthy buyers of Singapore’s prestigious Good Class Bungalows used methods such as shell companies to conceal their identities during property purchases.

The report stated that Shanmugam sold a bungalow for S$88 million to an unnamed buyer through a trust arrangement.

It also reported that Tan purchased a Good Class Bungalow worth approximately S$27 million using a non-caveated deal, a transaction structure that makes it more difficult to identify the parties involved.

After the court’s ruling, Bloomberg removed the article from its website in compliance with the court’s order.

Ministers argued article implied wrongdoing

Shortly after publication in December 2024, the ministers initiated legal proceedings, arguing that the article associated their legitimate property transactions with discussions about secrecy and potential money laundering elsewhere in the report.

Shanmugam also argued that the story had specifically targeted him by focusing on the sale of his property.

Bloomberg and reporter Low De Wei rejected those claims, insisting that the ministers had simply been cited as “newsworthy examples” of luxury property transactions.

The defence also argued that the ministers had interpreted the article in “the most defamatory” way rather than how an ordinary reader would understand it.

Bloomberg’s lawyers further stated that the report had undergone extensive verification and that the ministers had been contacted several times for comment before publication.

Court found article implied lack of transparency

In her judgment, High Court Judge Audrey Lim ruled that the article, when read in its entirety, conveyed that the ministers had exploited existing regulations to conduct their property transactions without transparency.

She wrote that the report implied the ministers:

“took advantage”

of existing rules to complete property transactions:

“in a non-transparent manner”

and that they did so:

“to avoid scrutiny that might extend to the possibility of money laundering.”

Judge Lim described these as:

“grave assertions that directly impugn the claimants’ personal integrity, character, and professional reputation,”

adding that this finding justified the damages awarded.

Separate government action under anti-fake news law

Separate from the defamation case, Singaporean authorities also ordered Bloomberg to publish a correction notice under the country’s Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).

The legislation, introduced in 2019 to combat misinformation, empowers authorities to require online platforms to display government-issued corrections on content deemed false. Critics have argued that the law is frequently used against government critics.

Bloomberg complied with the directive but attached a statement noting that, although it was required to publish the notice:

“under threat of sanction,”

it nevertheless stood by its reporting.

Authorities also issued POFMA correction notices to other media outlets that had republished the Bloomberg story or published commentaries about it.

The two ministers also won a separate defamation lawsuit against the editor-in-chief of Singapore-based independent outlet The Online Citizen over commentary relating to the Bloomberg article.

Singapore’s political leaders have frequently pursued defamation actions against critics and international media organisations, arguing that such lawsuits are necessary to protect their reputations. Critics, however, contend that the legal actions have had a chilling effect on political criticism and public debate.

Previous defamation cases have involved international publications including the Far Eastern Economic Review, The Economist, and The New York Times, all of which have either paid damages or settled similar claims in Singapore.