Ministers sue Bloomberg: Tan See Leng says parts of article are false, baseless and 'calculated to disparage'

SINGAPORE: Parts of a Bloomberg article are false, baseless, and calculated to defame Manpower Minister Tan See Leng, the minister said in a court document supporting his civil suit. 

In January, Dr Tan and Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam sued Bloomberg and reporter Low De Wei over their article titled "Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy".

The ministers said that the article about Good Class Bungalows transactions in Singapore, which mentions both ministers, is defamatory. 

Against this, Bloomberg and Mr Low have filed defences denying that the article is defamatory, with the former adding that it had "no interest nor reason" to impugn the reputation of the ministers. 

Dr Tan's statement of claim, obtained by CNA, sets out his case over the Bloomberg article. 

He highlighted that several sections from the article were defamatory, and said Bloomberg and Mr Low had published or caused to be published the article on Bloomberg's website and social media pages, including Facebook, X and LinkedIn. 

Dr Tan, who is also Second Minister for Trade and Industry, said that the offending words suggested that he "took advantage of there being no checks and balances or disclosure requirements in purchasing a property in a non-transparent manner".

They meant or are understood to falsely mean that he wanted to "hide his transaction and avoid scrutiny, including about the possibility of money laundering".

"The offending words, as they mean and would be understood to mean … are false and baseless and were and are calculated to disparage and impugn (Dr Tan) as well as in his offices as the Minister for Manpower and Second Minister for Trade and Industry of Singapore," according to the statement.

Dr Tan said that there continues to be substantial publication of the article in Singapore, and it remains accessible to the public. 

Days after the article was published on Dec 12, 2024, both ministers indicated that they would be issuing Letters of Demand to Bloomberg and other outlets that reproduced the article in whole or in part.

A Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) correction direction was issued to Bloomberg on Dec 23, 2024. 

Correction orders were also handed to The Edge Singapore, The Independent Singapore and The Online Citizen.

Bloomberg posted the correction notice on its article and its social media posts but added that it "respectfully disagrees" with it and reserves its right to appeal and challenge it. The news outlet said that it stood by its reporting.

In his suit, Dr Tan will be relying on reactions to the article and how it was shared on other online platforms such as Reddit and HardwareZone. 

Bloomberg is "a very well-known media and news company worldwide" with reportedly more than 600,000 subscribers as of around Aug 16, 2024, he noted. 

He is seeking unspecified damages and costs, and an injunction that Bloomberg and Mr Low be restrained from "publishing or disseminating the said false and defamatory allegations or any words to the same effect by any means whatsoever". 

DEFENCES

In separate but largely similar defences filed to the court, Bloomberg and Mr Low maintained that the words were not defamatory. 

As a news platform focused on reports relating to finance, markets and economics, Bloomberg has "no interest nor reason to, and did not in fact impugn the reputation of ministers of the Singapore government", Bloomberg stated in its defence. 

It said that its article had two focuses:

• To highlight that purchases of Good Class Bungalows (GCBs), which are not caveated, bring some privacy benefits and typically transact at a higher price.
• To highlight that purchasers of GCBs who do not want their identities to be publicly discoverable use trust structures to purchase their GCBs.

A property caveat is a legal document that is submitted to the Singapore Land Authority to register interest in a property that a buyer wishes to purchase. This prevents other people from purchasing it. 

"It is not defamatory to state that a purchaser of a property can make use of the relative privacy that a non-caveated transaction offers, nor is it defamatory to state that a purchaser wishes to keep his property transactions out of the public eye to avoid drawing attention to their wealth and social status as the law permits, even if one is of the view that the law should change," it added. 

Dr Tan's non-caveated purchase was one of the four examples it mentioned, and no wrongdoing had been suggested, Bloomberg said.  

"It is not defamatory to state that a buyer has lawfully taken the benefit of the relative privacy accorded by a non-caveated transaction, even if greater transparency in property transactions might be desired. Nor is it defamatory to state that a buyer wishes to keep the buyer’s wealth or status private as the law permits," it said. 

Bloomberg also took issue with a highlighted portion of the offending words in Dr Tan's statement of claim, saying that this was a "selective and incomplete reproduction of the article", which had to be read in totality for context. 

The media outlet also set out what its article had been meant to convey, including that: 

• The prices paid by wealthy purchasers of GCBs using non-caveated transactions have typically been higher than prices in caveated transactions. Such buyers get greater relative privacy from public scrutiny of their wealth and property purchases compared to a non-caveated transaction.
• Non-caveated transactions of GCBs provide relatively more privacy than caveated transactions because they do not show up in the Urban Redevelopment Authority's (URA) database. However, non-caveated transactions may become public through other means, like press reporting. 
• The use of non-caveated transactions and the use of trusts by those buying GCBs lead to public perceptions of non-transparency, resulting in negative public perceptions, often unfounded.
• Public perceptions of a lack of transparency could be resolved if all private property deals for GCBs were subject to public mandatory disclosure rules of the identities of ultimate beneficiaries purchasing the GCB. Such rules would align with Singapore’s reputation as a transparent and open economy.

Bloomberg denied casting aspersions on Dr Tan, whom they said was generally known as a "man of means". 

He had been the CEO of a publicly-listed healthcare conglomerate prior to his entry into politics, with the article stating that he was currently a minister. 

"Any suggestion that (Dr Tan) purchased his property in a non-transparent manner to hide his transaction and avoid scrutiny about the possibility of money laundering would not be plausible."

EXERCISING RESPONSIBLE JOURNALISM

Even if the article was found to be defamatory, Bloomberg will be relying on the defence that it was exercising responsible journalism to report on a matter of public interest, and exercising its duty to communicate important information on such a matter to the public. 

With respect to Mr Low, Bloomberg stated how the reporter had exercised responsible journalism in preparation of the article. 

Mr Low had ensured that the reference to Dr Tan's bungalow purchase was factually accurate, very short, and presented in neutral terms. 

The reporter had taken care to qualify that a non-caveated deal was harder to track but possible to find through other press reports and directed searches of local real estate ownership records. 

He also sought Dr Tan's comment in the article by emailing the minister's press secretary on Oct 25, 2024 and Dec 4, 2024. 

The press secretary later informed Mr Low that Dr Tan would not be commenting. 

Apart from Dr Tan, Mr Low had also contacted the Singapore Land Authority, URA and real estate specialists, and relied on data from reputable databases to write the article. 

Dr Tan and Mr Shanmugam's suits are next set for case conferences at the High Court on Mar 11.