Shanmugam and Tan See Leng at High Court hearing over defamation suits against TOC’s Terry Xu

SINGAPORE – The Online Citizen (TOC) chief editor Terry Xu failed to turn up for a High Court hearing on Feb 26, held to determine the amount of damages over defamation suits filed by two Cabinet ministers.

Mr Xu, who had earlier failed to file a defence in the defamation suits over a Bloomberg article on property transactions published by TOC, did not have a legal representative in court.

Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam and Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng, who attended the hearing, took the stand briefly to confirm the affidavits they had filed in court.

On the stand, both Mr Shanmugam, who is also Coordinating Minister for National Security, and Dr Tan answered a few clarification questions from Justice Audrey Lim regarding the dates of their ministerial appointments.

Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, who is acting for both ministers, submitted a written opening statement, which did not specify the amount of damages sought.

In the opening statement, Mr Singh noted that the effect of Mr Xu’s failure to file a defence is that the facts in the ministers’ statements of claim are taken to be admitted by the defendant.

Mr Singh contended that Mr Xu’s defamatory allegations were “of the gravest kind”.

Noting that the higher a claimant’s standing, the heavier the damages, he pointed out that the two ministers are public leaders and persons of the highest integrity, whose standing is beyond question.

Mr Singh said the fact that the TOC website and its social media pages are widely viewed weighed in favour of higher damages.

He argued that the court can consider the engagement by users with a social media post, and the number of social media followers, in establishing the extent of publication.

The extent of publication has a bearing on the amount of damages, he added.

Mr Singh also pointed to Mr Xu’s conduct in support of the ministers’ claim for aggravated damages.

This includes refusing to remove the article and social media posts despite demands by the ministers’ lawyers and a restraining order granted by the court, as well as waging a campaign to gain sympathy from Singaporeans by falsely accusing the ministers of suppressing “press freedom”.

At the end of the 30-minute hearing, Justice Lim told Mr Singh to file closing submissions in two weeks and, within seven days of the filing, to serve the documents on Mr Xu by e-mail and personally to his stated address in Taiwan.

The defamation suits against Mr Xu centred on a Bloomberg article published on TOC’s website in December 2024.

The Dec 12 article, written by Mr Low De Wei, was about good class bungalow transactions in Singapore.

Headlined “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”, the article mentioned property transactions involving Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan.

The article was subsequently picked up by media outlets such as TOC and The Edge.

Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan indicated in December 2024 that they would act against media outlets for publishing statements that they considered libellous.

On Jan 6, 2025, the ministers filed separate defamation suits against Bloomberg and Mr Low.

In their statements of claim, the ministers said certain statements in the article were false and baseless, and were calculated to disparage and impugn them, as well as the ministerial offices they held.

Bloomberg and Mr Low have denied that the words complained of in the article are defamatory.

Trial dates for the cases against Bloomberg and Mr Low have been set for April.

The lawsuit against Mr Xu was also filed on Jan 6, 2025. The ministers were granted permission by the court on Jan 28 that year to serve the legal papers on Mr Xu in Taiwan.

On Aug 26, 2025, Justice Lim granted default judgment in favour of Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan, with damages to be assessed.