A Singapore High Court has ordered Bloomberg News and one of its reporters to pay S$460,000 (about $356,000) in damages to two government ministers after ruling that a 2024 article about luxury property transactions defamed them.
The case was brought by Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam and Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng over an article titled Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy. The report examined how some buyers of Good Class Bungalows, Singapore’s most exclusive residential properties, used legal ownership structures and transaction methods that made purchases more difficult to trace.
The article cited Shanmugam’s sale of a bungalow for S$88 million through a trust and noted that Tan had purchased a Good Class Bungalow for about S$27 million using a non-caveated deal, a transaction method that limits publicly available information about property transfers. Bloomberg said the ministers were included as examples of a broader trend and that the report did not suggest they had engaged in any improper conduct.
Justice Audrey Lim ruled that when the article was read as a whole, it implied the ministers had taken advantage of existing rules to conduct property transactions in a non-transparent manner and avoid public scrutiny, including possible links to money laundering. The judge described those implications as serious allegations that harmed the ministers’ integrity, character and professional reputations, leading to the damages award.
Following the ruling, Bloomberg removed the article from its website in compliance with the court’s order.
Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait expressed disappointment with the decision but said the news organisation would respect the ruling. He maintained that Bloomberg’s reporting was accurate, served the public interest and that the ministers had interpreted the article in an overly broad and damaging way.
The legal dispute began shortly after the article was published in December 2024. During the trial, the ministers argued that the report unfairly linked their lawful property transactions with broader concerns about secrecy and money laundering discussed elsewhere in the story. Bloomberg’s legal team countered that the article underwent extensive fact-checking and that the reporter had sought comments from the ministers before publication.
The case also attracted attention because Singapore’s authorities issued Bloomberg with a correction notice under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA). Bloomberg complied while stating it stood by its reporting.
Singapore has a long history of defamation cases involving senior political leaders and media organisations. Previous lawsuits have resulted in damages against international publications, including the Far Eastern Economic Review, The Economist and The New York Times. Government officials say such actions are necessary to protect their reputations, while critics argue they can discourage media scrutiny and political criticism.
