Bloomberg had ‘agenda’ in running article on his property sale: Shanmugam during defamation trial

SINGAPORE – Financial news provider Bloomberg had an agenda in publishing an article about good class bungalow (GCB) transactions that mentioned his property sale, said Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam during a defamation trial on April 7.

Mr Shanmugam, who is also Home Affairs Minister, said this while he was being cross-examined on the first day of the High Court civil trial against Bloomberg and its reporter, Mr Low De Wei.

He added that information about the sale of his bungalow was not a matter of public interest.

Mr Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng have sued Bloomberg over a Dec 12, 2024, article on GCB transactions in Singapore headlined “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”.

It cited Mr Shanmugam’s use of a trust structure to sell a bungalow in the Queen Astrid Park area and Dr Tan’s non-caveated purchase of a GCB in Brizay Park, among other examples of landed property deals.

A caveat is a legal document that property buyers can submit to the Singapore Land Authority to register their interest in a property and prevent other people from buying it.

The ministers contended that the article was understood to falsely mean that they had taken advantage of there being no checks and balances or disclosure requirements, to carry out their property dealings in a non-transparent manner.

In court, Bloomberg’s lawyer, Senior Counsel N. Sreenivasan, questioned Mr Shanmugam about a discussion between the minister and his press secretary, Ms Ng Siew Hua.

Ms Ng was updating Mr Shanmugam about a conversation she had with a Bloomberg journalist who said information about the sale of his house was part of a broader story about how the rich were trying to minimise scrutiny of property transactions.

“I told her I was sceptical about their reasons. I didn’t believe they were not targeting me. I believe that they had an agenda,” said Mr Shanmugam in court.

“They were just trying to find a way of getting the sale published.”

Mr Shanmugam said the events that transpired “confirm that they were lying”.

He added: “I cannot prevent Bloomberg from publishing it but I didn’t believe the reasons.”

Further questioned on what he meant by an agenda, Mr Shanmugam referred to internal e-mails exchanged between Bloomberg staff.

The e-mails were given to the ministers as part of a pre-trial process known as discovery where parties are obliged to exchange evidence.

One journalist said she heard from a source that “our favourite minister” recently sold his GCB at Queen Astrid Park “probably for an eye-watering sum”.

She also said a story about Mr Shanmugam selling his GCB would “strike a nerve”.

Mr Shanmugam said Bloomberg recognised the difficulty with reporting the sale, which would be “dated” because it took place the year before. He said the aim of the article was to get the sale out in public by wrapping a broader story around it.

In another e-mail, a Bloomberg journalist described Mr Shanmugam as “Singapore’s most powerful minister” who had said off the record that he did not know who the buyer of his property was.

The journalist added that the minister was “someone who should lead by example, as the police, immigration and the courts – all report to him”.

Mr Shanmugam said there was a suggestion that he was lying when he said he did not know who bought the property.

He had earlier testified that because the property was bought by a trust, neither he nor his lawyers knew who the ultimate beneficial owner was.

On the contents of the e-mail, he said that while some laypeople think that as he was minister for law then, the courts reported to him, he did not expect journalists to believe that.

“It’s venomous and full of nastiness,” he added.

Mr Shanmugam said Bloomberg was hoping that he would give a comment for the story. “They were laying a trap and I refused to walk into it. I refused to answer.”

In the ministers’ written opening statement, Mr Shanmugam’s lawyers from Davinder Singh Chambers said the article’s title and first sentence make it plain to the reader that it was “an expose on how and why the ultra-rich in Singapore have been increasingly transacting GCBs in a non-transparent manner”.

Noting that the article expressly names Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan, their lawyers took issue with the defendants’ contention that save for the paragraphs that expressly mention the two ministers, they deny that the ministers were referred to in the rest of the article.

“In other words, their position appears to be that any paragraph that does not expressly mention (the claimants) must be taken to have nothing to do with them,” the ministers’ lawyers said.

That is neither the law nor how readers understand things, they added.

“The court will consider what the offending words would convey to the reader viewed in the context of the publication as a whole.”

In court, Mr Sreenivasan had also asked Mr Shanmugam if he would consider transactions involving GCBs to be newsworthy. This was at a time when discussion about new citizens buying such properties was in the public landscape, he said.

Mr Shanmugam said he disagreed that the private transaction of his property was newsworthy.

He said: “In my mind I draw a distinction between matters of public interest, which would relate to issues of policy which responsible newspapers would be concerned about, and matters that the public would be interested in... and the sale of my property would fall in the second (category).”

Mr Shanmugam said that the internal e-mails show quite clearly that Bloomberg was looking for an excuse to publish the article.

He said the news organisation was trying to “cross the divide” about why it was publishing about a private transaction and, after struggling to find some angle, wrapped it around the article which was “full of holes”.

The minister’s response sparked a heated exchange between Mr Shanmugam and Mr Sreenivasan, when the lawyer referred to Mr Shanmugam’s response as a “speech”.

When the minister took issue, Mr Sreenivasan said he was not there to be cross-examined, to which Mr Shanmugam said he was not there to “be given ad hominem remarks”.

Mr Shanmugam was also questioned about an article by The Online Citizen (TOC) on the sale of his property.

He said he believed that the article would not have been liable to any action under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, as it involved a private matter.

He said that if he wanted to take any steps, he would have to sue TOC privately and he had no intention to sue for that particular article.

Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan are seeking general and aggravated damages.

The ministers said the defendants had behaved “reprehensibly” in the proceedings, with determination to withhold relevant documents.

They said in the opening statement: “The (claimants) will also show that the (defendants) were actuated by malice, and that the (defendants) continue to refuse to remove the article, which remains accessible and available on the website and social media pages, no doubt with the aim that the trial... will generate further interest in the article.”

Early drafts

In a joint opening statement, the defendants said the genesis of the article was Mr Low’s work as a reporter on real estate matters, observing broader market trends in Singapore’s GCB market.

The article did not originate from any intention to report on the ministers or their respective transactions, said the defendants.

The early drafts did not refer to the ministers at all, with their property transactions introduced only later as examples of the practices discussed, said the defendants.

The defendants argued that the meaning of the parts of the article that are alleged to be defamatory should be based not on the ministers’ interpretation or a subjective standard, but on an objective one.

Mr Low is represented by Senior Counsel Chelva Rajah.

The trial continues on April 8.