Bloomberg and government e-mails in the spotlight as defamation trial wraps up after 7 days

SINGAPORE – Internal e-mails revealing discussions within Bloomberg and the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) in the lead-up to the publication of an article, which is at the centre of a defamation suit, proved to be a key feature of the seven-day trial in the High Court which wrapped up on April 15.

The correspondence included exchanges among Bloomberg staff on how to develop the story, nine months before its publication, and internal SLA correspondence on how to respond to queries from Mr Low De Wei, the journalist who wrote the piece.

These e-mails were part of the evidence relied upon in court by the claimants, Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng, and the defendants, Bloomberg and Mr Low.

The ministers filed a defamation suit over the Dec 12, 2024, article headlined “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”.

The report mentioned the sale of Mr Shanmugam’s former home in the Queen Astrid Park area to UBS Trustees for $88 million in 2023, and Dr Tan’s non-caveated purchase of a bungalow in Brizay Park for nearly $27.3 million the same year.

Some of the e-mails presented in court had been voluntarily disclosed to the opposing side. Others were handed over by Bloomberg after lawyers for the ministers obtained a court order compelling their disclosure.

This disclosure process, traditionally referred to as “discovery”, is now termed “production of documents” in Singapore under new court rules that took effect in April 2022.

The parties in a civil case have to disclose to the opposing side documents in their possession that they intend to rely on, as well as all known documents adverse to their own case.

Parties can also apply to the court to order the opposing side to hand over a specific document or a category of documents.

The Straits Times takes a look at how these e-mails took centre stage in the defamation trial.

Alleged agenda

The first exchange around internal e-mails centred on the issue of agenda – specifically, the reasons for the article.

Under cross-examination on the first day of the trial, Mr Shanmugam – one of Singapore’s top litigators before he became a Cabinet minister – turned the spotlight on e-mail exchanges in the Bloomberg newsroom.

This came about while he was being questioned about a discussion between his press secretary and a Bloomberg journalist in October 2024.

Mr Shanmugam, who is also the Minister for Home Affairs, said he believed that there was an agenda behind Bloomberg’s pursuit of the story on good class bungalow (GCB) transactions.

When Bloomberg’s lawyer, Senior Counsel N. Sreenivasan, asked him why he thought there was an agenda, Mr Shanmugam read aloud e-mails from March 2024, which were in a thread with the subject “Shan’s sale of GCB in Singapore”, to support his belief that he was targeted.

The first was sent by Ms Joyce Koh, Bloomberg’s finance team leader for Asia excluding China, who said she had heard from a source that “our favourite minister” recently sold his GCB.

Mr Low, a real estate reporter, replied that records showed that the sale was done in 2023. He added that Dr Tan had purchased a GCB that year.

General election

Ms Koh responded that former minister Mah Bow Tan had just sold his GCB. She added that it would be “quite a politically sensitive story”, especially with the general election approaching.

In another e-mail, Ms Koh agreed with Mr Low’s suggestion to wrap the sale of Mr Shanmugam’s GCB in a broader story on how “rich people” were using trusts to buy properties in Singapore.

She said a story about the sale on its own would be “dated”, and that news of the sale would “strike a nerve”.

Bloomberg Singapore bureau chief Andrea Tan suggested including the transactions involving Mr Shanmugam, Dr Tan and Mr Mah in a piece spotlighting recent GCB deals.

In another set of e-mails in September 2024, Ms Tan asked if there was “something compelling that we can say” to write about the deal more than a year later, after Ms Koh shared “off record” information from her sources at UBS, including details about Mr Shanmugam’s property deal.

Another reporter, Ms Chanyaporn Chanjaroen, suggested asking Mr Shanmugam for comment on the record and “lead with that”.

Mr Shanmugam said the e-mails showed he was right to be sceptical when Bloomberg approached his press secretary to get a comment about his property sale.

Describing the request for comment as a “trap”, he said it was difficult to justify writing about the sale on its own, but a story could be run if he gave a response.

Bloomberg editors

E-mails exchanged between Mr Low and Bloomberg editors based overseas were also presented in court.

Mr Shanmugam said the e-mails showed that the news organisation’s employees in Singapore did not seem to be completely transparent with their management outside of the country.

The ministers’ lawyer, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, referred to two e-mails that Ms Lulu Chen, who is Asia finance, investing and wealth managing editor at Bloomberg, had sent to Mr Low.

According to her LinkedIn page, Ms Chen is based in Hong Kong.

In August 2024, Mr Low sent Ms Chen what he described as his first draft, but Mr Singh called it a story pitch.

In the seven-paragraph document, Mr Low said a “secretive market” had emerged to cater to the ultra-rich in Singapore who want to keep deals “under wraps” as scrutiny grows, partly due to the nation’s largest money laundering scandal.

In her reply, Ms Chen asked whether these secretive deals need to be vetted by the Government and whether anti-money laundering standards were maintained.

The drafts evolved over the weeks.

In the second e-mail in October 2024, Ms Chen said she still did not have an answer on whether the Government can see the identities of people who use trusts to buy GCBs.

Mr Low suggested checking with the Government but said he suspected the answer was “no”.

In court, Mr Shanmugam said no clear answers were given to the Bloomberg office outside of Singapore. “Maybe there was some degree of misrepresentation by the Singapore office,” he said.

Mr Singh also referred to an e-mail from Ms Emily Cadman, a senior editor based in Sydney, Australia. Ms Serena Ng, who was editing Mr Low’s article, was copied on the e-mail.

Ms Cadman had asked if there were any other constituencies pushing for more disclosure other than the journalist.

She asked if there was a way to show how Singapore was different from other cities, where property purchases by shell companies also take place.

Mr Low replied that one of the news points was that one of the deals involved a minister.

He added that in theory, the Government should be able to see the deals but it was not clear how much was done in terms of anti-money laundering checks.

In court, Mr Shanmugam said Mr Low gave the impression that there were hardly any checks.

When Mr Low took the stand, Mr Singh also referred to these e-mails to challenge the reporter’s earlier testimony that his article was about GCB deals being kept secret from the public and not about money laundering.

New evidence

On April 15 – the last day of the trial – an internal SLA e-mail that was voluntarily handed over by the claimants was introduced into evidence by Mr Sreenivasan.

It contained the agency’s internal discussion on how it was going to respond to a list of queries sent by Mr Low in preparation for his article that was read out by Mr Sreenivasan in court.

Among other things, Mr Low wanted to find out if SLA had numbers for naturalised Singaporeans who had purchased GCBs since 2019.

He also asked if it reviewed big-ticket transactions, especially pure-cash deals, for any money laundering risk, and if approvals were granted to licensed trust companies, with foreign beneficiaries, to purchase a GCB before 2019.

In the e-mail, SLA indicated that it was going to “engage” the reporter instead of issuing an official response, directing him to publicly available material.

SLA also discussed internally that it was not inclined to mention SLA’s Integrated Land Information Service, or INLIS, database to Mr Low as the agency does not typically share it with the media.

While the platform was publicly accessible, SLA noted that it was often used by “industry players and relevant stakeholders”, and highlighted privacy concerns about actively publicising it.

Mr Singh had objected to the information about the database being read out, saying that it was irrelevant, but Mr Sreenivasan successfully argued for it based on the count of its pertinence.

Cross-examining Mr Low on the internal SLA e-mail, Mr Singh said it showed the agency was trying to help him by referring him to various sources, but Mr Low decided against using the material because it was “inconvenient to the line he was going for in the article”.

Mr Low disagreed.

After both parties closed their cases, a chambers hearing was held on April 16.

The court will next hear oral submissions from both parties on May 22.