April trial dates fixed for Shanmugam and Tan See Leng’s defamation suits against Bloomberg

Financial news provider Bloomberg is set to contest allegations of defamation by Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng in a civil trial in April.

Following months of case conferences, trial dates have been set for eight days between April 7 and 16, according to court records.

The case involves statements that appeared in a Dec 12, 2024 Bloomberg article on good class bungalow (GCB) transactions in Singapore headlined “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”.

The article had referenced separate GCB transactions that involved Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan, and both ministers said on Dec 16 that they considered the article libellous and would be taking legal action against Bloomberg.

It had cited Mr Shanmugam’s use of a trust structure to sell a bungalow in the Queen Astrid Park area and Dr Tan’s non-caveated purchase of a GCB in Brizay Park, among other examples of landed property deals.

A caveat is a legal document that property buyers can submit to the Singapore Land Authority to register their interest in a property and prevent other people from buying it.

On Jan 6, 2025, separate claims were filed by both ministers against the US media organisation and the reporter behind the story, Mr Low De Wei.

According to their 49-page statements of claim, the ministers said the article was understood to falsely mean that they had taken advantage of there being no checks and balances or disclosure requirements to carry out their property dealings in a non-transparent manner.

This was to hide their transactions and avoid scrutiny, including about the possibility of money laundering, they contended.

Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan said the offending words in the article were false and baseless, and were calculated to disparage and impugn them, as well as the ministerial offices they held.

In its defence submissions to the court on Feb 5, 2025, Bloomberg denied the claims, and said that as a news platform focused on reporting relating to finance, markets and economics, it has no interest nor reason to, and did not in fact impugn the reputation of the ministers.

It said that the focus of the article was twofold – first, to highlight that purchases of GCBs which are not caveated bring some privacy benefits and typically transact at a higher price; and second, that buyers of GCBs who do not want their identities to be publicly discoverable use trust structures to purchase them.

Bloomberg said it was not defamatory to state that a buyer of a property can make use of the relative privacy offered by not lodging a caveat.

Neither was it defamatory to state that a person wished to keep his property transaction out of the public eye to avoid drawing attention to their wealth and social status “as the law permits, even if one is of the view that the law should change”, it added.

On Dec 23, 2024, correction directions were issued against Bloomberg in relation to the article under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, Singapore’s fake news law.

The Ministry of Law said then that the false statements in Bloomberg’s article “attack the transparency of property transactions in Singapore” and “give the impression that Singapore does not have a robust legal framework to require disclosure of information to the Government in GCB transactions”.

Bloomberg subsequently put up a correction notice on the article but said it had done so under the threat of sanction.

The Edge Singapore, The Independent Singapore and The Online Citizen were also issued correction orders for carrying in part or in full the statements published in the Bloomberg piece.

The articles by The Edge Singapore and The Independent Singapore were subsequently taken down, while The Online Citizen published the correction notice.

The two ministers are represented by a team of lawyers from Davinder Singh Chambers, including Mr Davinder Singh and Mr David Fong Cheng Yee, court records show.

Bloomberg is represented by a team of lawyers from RCLT Law Corporation, including Mr Remy Choo Zheng Xi and Mr Donaven Foo, while Mr Low is represented by Mr Wong Thai Yong, from his eponymous firm.

The Straits Times understands that Bloomberg is also represented by Mr N. Sreenivasan, while Mr Low, the reporter, is also represented by Mr Chelva Retnam Rajah. Both lawyers are senior counsel.

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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