SINGAPORE – Bloomberg journalist Low De Wei had left out information given to him by a real estate analyst so he could paint a “false picture” that some buyers of good class bungalows (GCBs) were paying premiums for off-the-radar deals.
Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, who is representing two ministers in the defamation suit against Bloomberg and Mr Low, said the reporter did this despite being told by the analyst in an e-mail that there was no difference between the pricing of caveated and non-caveated transactions.
Mr Singh, who is acting for Coordinating Minister for National Security K. Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng, noted that the analyst had explained that the price of a GCB depended on several factors, including the size of the plot, the terrain and the quality of the finishes.
Cross-examining Mr Low on April 15 in the ongoing defamation trial in the High Court, Mr Singh said: “Here was your source telling you that there is no difference between caveated and uncaveated (deals) when it comes to pricing. It depends on the various factors.
“You completely disregarded all of that and presented a false picture. You created a notion, a fiction of there being premiums paid for off-the-radar transactions.”
Mr Shanmugam, who is also Home Affairs Minister, and Dr Tan have sued Bloomberg and Mr Low 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.
In the article, Mr Low wrote that deals without caveats are much harder to track because they do not show up in a database maintained by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
A caveat is a legal document that property buyers and mortgage lenders can submit to the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) to prevent a property from being sold to others.
Mr Low denied Mr Singh’s charge that he had created “a fiction”.
The lawyer put it to the reporter that the article was written maliciously “to embarrass and damage” the ministers, and that Bloomberg decided to inflict maximum damage by keeping the article up without a paywall for more people to read.
“Far from an exercise of responsible journalism, this article was written by a pen dipped in gall,” Mr Singh added.
