A defamation lawsuit filed by Singapore cabinet ministers K Shanmugam and Tan See Leng against financial news outlet Bloomberg on Tuesday opened with heated exchanges over an article that mentioned their personal property transactions.
According to statements of claim filed in the High Court, Shanmugam, who is coordinating minister for national security, and Tan, who is manpower minister, said parts of the article, titled “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”, were false, baseless and calculated to disparage and impugn them.
Bloomberg and the reporter who wrote the article, Low De Wei, have denied this through their lawyers. The trial is set to run from Tuesday to April 16.
