Singapore court orders Bloomberg to pay ministers $356,000 in defamation case | Singapore
Bloomberg News and one of its reporters were ordered to pay S$460,000 (US$355,734) in damages after an article it published was found to have insulted two Singapore government ministers, the city-state’s high court said in a ruling published on Tuesday.
The ruling said Bloomberg and reporter Low De Wei were jointly liable to pay S$230,000 to each minister, including S$170,000 in general damages and S$60,000 in severance damages.
Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait in question was disappointed in the decision and the company’s continued stand by its reporter and newsroom.
“We argued in court that our reporting was accurate and served an important public interest, and we continue to believe that ministers gave an extremely strained meaning to what was a solid story,” he told Reuters in an email. He did not say whether Bloomberg planned an appeal.
Home affairs minister K Shanmugam and manpower minister Tan See Leng sued Bloomberg and one of its reporters for defamation over a December 2024 article about secrecy surrounding expensive property transactions involving “good class bungalows” (a prized form of property in Singapore) that mentioned deals involving ministers.
The law firm representing the ministers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In her ruling, Judge Audrey Lim wrote: “The overriding purpose behind the article was to publish a story about the plaintiffs, specifically their case. [good class bungalow] transactions. “The broader narrative of how wealthy individuals in Singapore use imprudent transactions and trust structures to keep their relationships secret or ‘off the radar’ was a cover designed to carry this story.”
Bloomberg argued that the story was reporting on trends in luxury property transactions, saying both ministers were newsworthy examples of such deals. The news organization told the court that the article did not allege ministers’ misconduct.
The ministers’ lawyer demanded heavy compensation and said that the defendants had bad intentions.
He told the court that after Bloomberg received a correction order under Singapore’s Online Fraud and Manipulation Protection Act, the company responded by removing the paywall on the article and publicly stood by it.
A Bloomberg editor said in an affidavit that the company removed the paywall so readers could see the correction notice. The announcement was placed at the top of the story on the website, the hearing was told, and included a statement that Bloomberg “respectfully disagreed” with that aspect and stood by his reporting.
In his ruling, the judge said Low had acted imprudently and erred in disclosing the transparency of local authority records regarding non-prudential bungalow transactions.
He said such records are maintained in public records and made searchable through the Singapore Land Authority’s integrated land information service; Low knew this while making the call as a reporter.
“I also think Bloomberg’s action in lifting the paywall on the article was malicious,” the judge said.
