Lead

A Singapore High Court has ordered Bloomberg and one of its reporters to pay S$460,000 ($356,000; £266,000) to two cabinet ministers who had sued them for defamation over an article about their property transactions. The ruling, delivered on Tuesday, awarded S$230,000 in damages to each of the ministers, K. Shanmugam and Tan See Leng.

Coverage comparison

Reporting on the case across outlets highlighted different aspects of the judgment. The BBC's coverage focused on the court's ruling and Bloomberg's response, noting that the outlet's editor-in-chief expressed disappointment while pledging to respect the decision. The South China Morning Post carried the ministers' statements on social media, in which they said the lawsuit was about protecting their integrity and reputations, and detailed the judge's reasoning in its coverage of the trial outcome.

Key claims

The lawsuit stems from an article published in 2024 titled "Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy," which examined how some wealthy buyers in Singapore obscured their purchases of Good Class Bungalows, a category of multimillion-dollar mansions, for example by using shell companies. The article reported that Shanmugam, the Coordinating Minister for National Security, had sold a bungalow for S$88m ($68m; £51m) to an unnamed buyer using a trust, and noted that Tan, the Minister for Manpower, had bought a Good Class Bungalow for around S$27m through a non-caveated deal.

Bloomberg argued that the article did not imply any wrongdoing and said the ministers were used as examples of a broader trend. The judge, however, found that when read as a whole, the piece implied wrongdoing by the ministers as it also mentioned secrecy and money laundering. Justice Audrey Lim said the article conveyed to the ordinary reader that the current system lacked checks and balances and disclosure requirements, and that Tan and Shanmugam conducted their transactions non-transparently to take advantage of this.

The court ordered Bloomberg to remove the article from its website, which was done on Tuesday following the verdict. The ministers had announced their intention to take legal action shortly after the article was published in December 2024.

In a statement published by Bloomberg News, the outlet's editor-in-chief John Micklethwait said it was "very disappointed by this ruling but we will of course respect it". He added: "We argued at trial that our reporting was accurate and served an important public interest, and we continue to believe that the ministers have imposed an extremely strained meaning on what was a solid story."

Perspectives

Ministers' perspective:

In separate social media posts published on Tuesday night, hours after the judgment, the ministers reiterated that the lawsuit was about protecting their integrity and reputations, as well as the standing of their ministerial offices. Shanmugam said he would donate the damages awarded to charity, and Tan said he would also donate the damages. Tan welcomed the court's judgment, which had "affirmed that the allegations conveyed by the article were defamatory" and vindicated his position. "From the outset, this case has been about protecting my integrity and reputation, and the standing of the office I hold," he wrote.

Bloomberg's perspective:

Bloomberg maintained that its reporting was accurate and served an important public interest. The outlet's editor-in-chief expressed disappointment with the ruling but said the company would respect it, continuing to believe that the ministers imposed an "extremely strained meaning" on what it described as a "solid story".