Singapore court orders Bloomberg to pay ministers in defamation case

16-Jul-2026

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A Singapore High Court on July 14 ordered Bloomberg and one of its reporters to pay SGD 230,000 in damages to two cabinet ministers in a defamation case, according to local media reports.

The lawsuit was filed last year by ministers K Shanmugam and Tan See Leng over a 2024 article on property deals. The court held that the article, read as a whole, linked their transactions to allegations of secrecy, opacity and money laundering, and therefore carried a defamatory meaning.

The Bloomberg article was titled "Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy" and referred to transactions involving Good Class Bungalows in Singapore. It mentioned Shanmugam's 2023 sale of his former house in the Queen Astrid Park area to UBS Trustees for SGD 88 million and Tan's non-caveated purchase of a bungalow in Brizay Park for nearly SGD 27.3 million.

A non-caveated transaction in Singapore's property market is one in which the buyer does not lodge a formal legal notice, or caveat, with the Singapore Land Authority to publicly record their interest in the property. The process is generally used to avoid delays and administrative procedures.

Justice Lim rejected Bloomberg's argument that the report was only about a wider pattern of non-caveated GCB transactions and that the ministers were cited merely as examples, The Straits Times reported. In a 71-page judgment, she said the test for deciding the natural and ordinary meaning of disputed words in a defamation case is well-settled.