A Singapore court has ordered Bloomberg and its reporter to jointly pay over SGD 460,000 after an article about mansion sales was interpreted as linking two ministers to money laundering and transaction concealment.
On 15 July 2026, the Singapore High Court ruled that Bloomberg, a major financial media company, and reporter Low Ter Wei must jointly pay SGD 460,000 (approximately 11.9 million baht) in damages to Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam and Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng in a defamation case arising from an article about luxury real estate transactions.
The case originated from a December 2024 article titled "Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy," which highlighted trends of luxury mansion sales in Singapore using trusts, nominee companies, or transaction methods that obscure buyers' identities.
The article stated that Mr. Shanmugam sold a mansion for SGD 88 million through a trust to an undisclosed buyer, and that Mr. Tan purchased a luxury mansion worth about SGD 27 million via a Non-Caveated Deal, which does not require immediate public registration of ownership rights, making transaction details harder to trace.
Although Bloomberg insisted the article did not accuse the ministers of illegal acts and only cited examples of market trends, the court found that, when read as a whole with references to concealment and money laundering, an average reader might interpret that the ministers exploited legal loopholes to avoid scrutiny and could be linked to money laundering, seriously harming their reputation and credibility.
Following the verdict, Bloomberg removed the article from its website as ordered by the court. Executive Editor John Micklethwait expressed disappointment with the decision but affirmed compliance and reiterated that the reporting was accurate and served the public interest.
Previously, Singapore authorities had required Bloomberg to issue corrections in the article under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), which Bloomberg complied with, while maintaining confidence in the accuracy of its reporting.