After 'Fake News Law' Fails to Bite, Singapore Ministers Sue for Libel

Government doesn’t close down Bloomberg in Singapore

With their threat to use the government’s fake news law to close down the Singapore operations of Bloomberg, the world’s leading international financial data and business news reporting service, for allegedly publishing false information regarding the transparency of multi-million dollar property transactions, two Singapore ministers have decided to sue the New York-based news organization for defamation instead.

The cases, according to local media, were filed on January 6 by Minister for Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam and Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng, but only became public later. They are set for a conference on March 3 in connection with a December 12, 2024 article titled “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy,” written by Low De Wei.

The article noted property transactions involving the two ministers. But the references to the two appeared to be factual, only pointing out their roles in the transactions and raising puzzlement on why they chose to invoke the law. The reportedly offending sentences pointed out that “Last year, Singapore’s Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng bought a Good Class Bungalow in another enclave called Brizay Park for nearly S$27.3 million,” and that “In September, an online media outlet reported that UBS Trustees had bought a bungalow from Singapore’s law minister, K Shanmugam, in the Queen Astrid Park area for S$88 million. The transaction was inked more than a year ago in August 2023.”…