Singapore court orders Bloomberg to pay $356,000 to ministers in defamation case

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.In her verdict, High Court judge Audrey Lim said that the "natural and ordinary meaning" of the article is that the ministers "took advantage" of existing regulations to deal their properties in a "non-transparent manner", and that they did so "to avoid scrutiny that might extend to the possibility of money laundering"."These are grave assertions that directly impugn the claimants' personal integrity, character, and professional reputation", Lim said, adding that this was a factor in the awarding of the damages.Separate to the defamation case, 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.