Singapore ministers’ defamation suit against Bloomberg for property article starts

Singapore cabinet ministers K. Shanmugam and Tan See Leng hauled financial news outlet Bloomberg and one of its reporters to court on Tuesday for defamation over an article that mentioned their personal property transactions.According to statements of claim filed in the High Court, Coordinating Minister for National Security Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan said parts of the article, titled “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”, were false, baseless and calculated to disparage and impugn them.Bloomberg and the reporter who wrote the article, Low De Wei, have denied this through their lawyers. The trial is set to run from Tuesday to April 16.On Tuesday morning, Shanmugam and Tan sat next to each other in court behind their team of lawyers led by senior counsel Davinder Singh.Bloomberg and Low were represented by a team of lawyers led by senior counsels Sreenivasan Narayanan and Chelvan Retnam Rajah.The Supreme Court building in Singapore. Photo: Ronan O’ConnellThe article, published in December 2024, referred to non-caveated purchases of good-class bungalows in Singapore. A caveat refers to a legal document buyers submit to the Singapore-land-authority" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="20891" data-entity-type="organization">Singapore Land Authority to register interest in a property.