Shanmugam confirms prior awareness of Bloomberg POFMA order; may have shared demand letter

Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam confirmed in the Singapore High Court on 9 April 2026 that he had known the government's Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) correction order against Bloomberg would be issued before it was made.

The confirmation came on the third day of the defamation trial brought by Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng against Bloomberg LP and its reporter Dexter Low De Wei over a 12 December 2024 article on Good Class Bungalow (GCB) transactions.

The article was headlined "Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy." It referred to Shanmugam's S$88 million sale of his GCB in the Queen Astrid Park area to UBS Trustees (Singapore) Ltd in August 2023, and Dr Tan's S$27.3 million purchase of a property at Brizay Park the same year.

Both ministers allege the article defamed them by suggesting they had carried out property transactions in a non-transparent manner that raised the spectre of money laundering. Bloomberg and Low deny this. The trial is before Justice Audrey Lim.

The POFMA direction was issued on 23 December 2024. Bloomberg did not challenge it but has stated it stands by its reporting. The article remains published at the time of the trial and time of publication of this article.

The exchange on prior awareness

Senior Counsel Sreenivasan Narayanan, acting for Bloomberg, asked Shanmugam whether he had been aware the POFMA order would be made before it was issued.

Shanmugam said answering would require him to go into the workings of government. He said he needed advice from his solicitors on Section 125 of the Evidence Act, government privilege, and the Attorney General's advice. He said the matter had been raised previously and not pursued after his solicitors indicated it could not be answered.

He added: "I've got nothing to hide. I'm perfectly happy to answer. But I need to take advice."

Sreenivasan told the court he had phrased his question carefully, acknowledging that communications were privileged, and said he was not seeking the government's inner workings. He said he only wanted to know Shanmugam's state of mind.

Shanmugam said Section 125 covered not only communications but also evidence.

Justice Lim then asked Shanmugam directly: "So Mr Shanmugam, were you aware the POFMA order would be made prior to it being made?"

Shanmugam replied: "Yes, Your Honour."

The letter of demand and the correction direction

Following the answer, Sreenivasan directed Shanmugam to his letter of demand, dated 19 December 2024, which stated that the entire premise of the article — that there are no checks and balances and that there are no disclosure requirements — is false; that it is false to state there are no publicly available records of property transactions when a caveat is not filed; that the government does not know the identity of the beneficiary when a trust mechanism is used; and that a lack of public record coupled with trust structures means there are no checks on the purchaser, allowing money laundering, because primary responsibility for checking rests on real estate agents and service providers.

Sreenivasan then put to Shanmugam the five subject statements in the government's Factually article, which accompanied the POFMA direction issued four days later on 23 December 2024. He asked whether there was a similarity in the points being made.

Shanmugam agreed: "Your Honour, there is a similarity in the points being made."

Sreenivasan then asked, framing his question explicitly to avoid engaging section 125 or the Official Secrets Act, whether the letter of demand had been made available to those drafting the POFMA direction.

Shanmugam answered: "No, Your Honour. The letter of demand was not made available to those drafting the POFMA direction."

The re-examination account of cabinet sharing

Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, acting for both ministers, also returned to the cross-examination answer in which Shanmugam had said the letter of demand was not made available to those drafting the direction. He directed Shanmugam to that exchange and asked him to clarify what he had meant by "those drafting POFMA."

Shanmugam said: "Your Honour, the people who go and draft these things, I did not give them the letter of demand."

He then continued: "But just for completeness, I should say, obviously, I kept my senior colleagues and cabinet informed. I mean, it would be unthinkable of me not to speak with them to say I'm going to sue. A minister suing Bloomberg or any other media is something that we keep our colleagues informed of and I've done it in the past as well."

He added: "Whether I share with them a letter of demand, I may have, or I may have summarized to be very clear the position I'm taking. And that's common and expected within a cabinet."

He continued: "The letter of demand was shared with, I believe, some people. Cabinet colleagues, senior colleagues, knew about it. I told them, I summarized the case, I gave my views and I said I'm going to sue."

He concluded: "I believe I might have shared it with some of my colleagues."

Damages — election results and article readership

Sreenivasan put to Shanmugam that after the article's publication in December 2024 and his re-election at the May 2025 general election, he had been appointed Coordinating Minister for National Security, described by the Prime Minister as a critical role with far-reaching responsibilities. Shanmugam confirmed this.

Sreenivasan pointed out that Shanmugam’s Nee Soon GRC team secured a 73.81 per cent vote share in the May 2025 election, representing a personal swing of 11.91 percentage points, which exceeded the national PAP swing of 4.33 percentage points. Shanmugam confirmed these figures and agreed the article had not damaged his standing with the Prime Minister. 

Regarding the article's impact, Sreenivasan presented data showing that Singapore viewership dropped to 977 by 15 December 2024, only to rise to 16,042 the next day. Shanmugam confirmed that on 16 December, he had announced his intent to take legal action on Facebook, accepting that the post would have triggered people wanting to see what the post was about.

Both ministers confirmed through Singh that they were not claiming any damages for actual financial loss. Their claims are for general damages and aggravated damages.

Brief cross-examination by Low's counsel

Senior Counsel Chelva Retnam Rajah, acting for Low, briefly examined Shanmugam after Sreenivasan concluded his cross-examination.

Shanmugam accepted that the first two versions of the Bloomberg article did not refer to him or his GCB sale. 

He accepted that the paragraph in the published article referring to his property opened with a factually accurate statement — that an online media outlet had reported in September 2024 that UBS Trustees had bought a bungalow from Singapore's law minister in the Queen Astrid Park area for S$88 million. He had also agreed earlier in the proceedings that the buyer of his property paid entirely in cash and did not take a mortgage.

He accepted that the statement describing the transaction as having been inked more than a year earlier in August 2023 was also accurate.

Rajah put to Shanmugam that the article itself did not allege any criminal, illegal, or improper conduct on his part in relation to the property sale.

Shanmugam said: "I fully disagree, Your Honour."

In re-examination, Singh asked Shanmugam to explain his rejection of that proposition. Shanmugam said: "I have said this article is full of falsehoods and does suggest that I was involved in a shady deal with the possibilities of money laundering."

He said: "It's crazy that this kind of article can be put up. This article is very carefully crafted to make all the false points as maliciously as possible."

Objections during re-examination

Sreenivasan objected on multiple occasions during Singh's re-examination of Shanmugam. He submitted that Singh was introducing documents not raised during cross-examination and asking leading questions, both of which are impermissible in re-examination.

Justice Lim upheld Sreenivasan on the leading questions point. She told Singh: "You do not ask leading questions in re-examination. And your questions to Mr Shanmugam in relation to all these documents that were not raised in the cross-examination should be really short."

She said she did not want to find at a later stage that drafts had not been brought to her attention. She allowed limited latitude where documents had already been put in issue during cross-examination but directed Singh to keep his questions short and to avoid leading the witness.

Singh submitted that he was showing the court a complete picture that the cross-examination had not presented, given that Sreenivasan had compared emails from October 2024 with documents he described as drafts from August 2024.

Internal Bloomberg emails

During re-examination Singh took Shanmugam through a sequence of internal Bloomberg emails. Shanmugam was asked about their content in the context of answers he had given during cross-examination.

The first set of emails was from March 2024. In one exchange, Bloomberg reporter Joyce Koh wrote to Dexter Low that a story showing Shanmugam had sold his GCB "would strike a nerve, especially given the controversy over the Ridout scandal." She described it as "quite a politically sensitive story, though I reckon, especially with elections approaching."

In a separate email in the same thread, Low described the transaction as "definitely a hush-hush affair."

Shanmugam said these characterisations were "completely false." He said he had sold the property through ordinary channels and had been dealing with a first-class financial institution.

On 22 August 2024, Bloomberg editor Lulu Chen emailed Low asking: "What's the so what of the story? Who does it hurt? Who cares? Do the secretive deals still need to be vetted by the government? If so, does it maintain standards for anti-money laundering practices?"

Shanmugam told the court that this email and others showed that Bloomberg's Singapore office had given people at Bloomberg outside Singapore the impression that government vetting was not taking place, which was why Chen was asking whether it still occurred. He said this was then reflected in the published article.

On 2 October 2024, Low emailed Bloomberg editor Emily Katman saying: "One of the news points I've made topical is a transaction involving a minister." He also wrote: "In theory, the government should still be able to see the transactions, but it's not clear how much AML checks they do."

Shanmugam said anyone spending five minutes with a lawyer would be told about the declaration requirements, the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) checks, and the role of licensed trust companies under Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) supervision.

On 22 October 2024, Bloomberg's Hong Kong-based editor Edward Johnson wrote that he "can't work out whether it is Chinese buying the properties illegally, whether it is somehow linked to the money laundering scandal, and it is neither of those things why it is a problem."

In a further email on 22 October 2024, Lulu Chen wrote: "I still don't see answers on whether the government can see the identities and money flow behind people who use trust to buy GCBs."

Shanmugam said these emails showed that Bloomberg's Singapore office had not given its international editors accurate information about Singapore's regulatory framework.

Shanmugam also told the court that a draft of the article dated 26 September 2024 — two days after an internal email from Bloomberg editor Chania — already contained a reference to the law minister, other politicians, and money laundering in sequence. He said: "It fits in with what Chania directed them. 24th September, she said, let's go essentially on money laundering. And it's focused on me."

On the AML framework

Singh also took Shanmugam through Singapore's anti-money laundering (AML) report during re-examination. Shanmugam directed the court to a diagram in the report showing government agencies including MAS, the Ministry of Law, the URA, and the Council of Estate Agencies as a foundational layer, with real estate agents placed above that.

He said Low's paragraph 29 of the article attributed primary responsibility for verifying identities to property agents and other service providers. He said: "He ignores the government's role. He ignores the legislation. He gives the impression that the government is not involved at all."

He added: "It's a sleight of hand going towards direct dishonesty."

He said financial institutions were not mentioned in the article even though customers cannot open accounts without banks performing customer due diligence. He said lawyers involved in every such transaction were also omitted.

The judge intervened to tell Shanmugam these matters could have been raised in his affidavit of evidence-in-chief (AEIC), as the article had been published before the affidavit was filed. She noted that the question of the article's meaning was a matter of construction for the court.

Caveats, trusts, and the impression of secrecy

Shanmugam also addressed what he described as two central pillars of the article's secrecy argument — its treatment of caveats and its treatment of trusts.

On caveats, Shanmugam said the article encouraged readers to think that wealthy buyers were paying a premium to keep their transactions hidden. He said: "This nonsense about caveats, which is one big pillar in this article about secrecy — why everyone is rushing to file caveats or not file caveats and therefore prepared to pay a premium — it encourages the reader to think, oh, there are these super rich people, they're paying a premium to hide their transaction. That is the impression."

He said the premise was without basis. He put the proposition in plain terms: if a buyer tells a seller he will not be filing a caveat, there is no logical reason the seller would then charge more. He said: "Does that sound like common sense to anyone? It's utter nonsense."

On trusts, Shanmugam said the article had framed the use of trust structures as a mechanism to hide the identity of buyers. He said this ignored the regulatory burden that comes with purchasing property through a trust in Singapore.

He said there are three conditions attached to such a purchase. The buyer must pay the applicable tax upfront. The buyer must disclose the full identities of all beneficiaries and the reasons for using the trust. The buyer then has six months to apply to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) for a refund, which may or may not be granted.

He said in his transaction the upfront tax obligation was approximately S$20 million. He said: "To suggest that anyone would do that to hide their identity is beyond — trust is used for wealth planning, tax planning, succession for a wife, children and so on."

He added that while a byproduct of using a trust might be that the beneficiary's name does not appear publicly, the reasons for using such structures are ordinarily those of financial and estate planning, not concealment.

Singh then asked Shanmugam whether a reporter who wanted to know the IRAS obligations would have been able to find this information. Shanmugam said: "It's available on the IRAS website. And if you went to any lawyer who does this area of work, they will tell that to you in five minutes."

Singh then asked Shanmugam what he said about paragraph 4 of the article, which placed a reference to non-disclosure agreements in the same paragraph as shell companies and trusts.

Shanmugam said: "Really bringing in the government, brokers, and giving this impression that there is secrecy and no one knows, and non-disclosure agreements are being signed and no caveats filed — you know what impression it creates and is sought to create."

At that point Sreenivasan rose and submitted to the judge that the answer was starting to resemble a supplementary affidavit of evidence-in-chief rather than a clarification of answers given in cross-examination.

The judge had earlier cautioned that matters which could have been included in the affidavit, given that the article had been published before it was filed, should not be introduced through re-examination. She noted that she would look at the article herself and apply the relevant legal measures.

Dr Tan See Leng takes the stand

Dr Tan See Leng, Manpower Minister, took the stand in the afternoon of 9 April 2026. He stated at the outset that he was not a lawyer and that this was his first time being cross-examined.

Sreenivasan opened by establishing Dr Tan's background. Dr Tan confirmed he had founded Healthway Medical Group at the age of 27, joined Parkway Holdings in 2004, and became group chief executive officer of IHH Healthcare Berhad, under whose leadership group revenue doubled from six billion to twelve billion ringgit and the hospital network expanded to 84 hospitals across eleven countries. He entered politics in 2020 at the invitation of Goh Chok Tong and others.

When Sreenivasan suggested it was common knowledge that Dr Tan had reached the top of his profession, Dr Tan said: "I cannot say that. From my medical school, we've always been taught — not the pride of knowledge but the humility of wisdom." He added: "I don't believe you would even know who I was prior to my entering politics."

The article and the decision to sue

Dr Tan said he read the Bloomberg article on the day it was published, 12 December 2024. He said he was "quite disturbed" by it.

"I read it over and over again because I'm not a lawyer. I just felt that the way the article was drafted put me in a not very good light," he told the court.

He said he consulted Singh and decided to commence legal proceedings. By 16 December 2024 he had resolved to sue.

Bloomberg's approach to Dr Tan

On 25 October 2024, Low sent an email to Dr Tan's press secretary, Ms Sing Geok Shan, introducing himself as a Bloomberg reporter and saying Bloomberg planned to report "a broader story on off-the-radar Good Class Bungalow transactions" involving Dr Tan. He identified the transaction as a S$27.3 million purchase in Brizay Park in 2023 which was not caveated.

Dr Tan confirmed the email was brought to his attention by Ms Sing. He said his reaction was: "What is there to comment? With all the facts there — you knew the purchase price, the year, the location — what is there to comment?"

He told the court his reaction to the description "off the radar" was: "What is off the radar? You really have the price, you know where it was." He said the information would appear in public records eventually and that the difference was "just a matter of four to six, maybe twelve weeks."

Sreenivasan put to Dr Tan that at the time he received the query, he was aware that a non-caveated transaction would not appear in URA's Realis database. Dr Tan agreed. He said: "I was aware. I just felt, why is it off the radar when it would appear eventually?"

Sreenivasan then put to Dr Tan that the email he had received in October 2024 identified two things: that the purchase was not caveated, and that Bloomberg described it as off the radar. Dr Tan agreed that was what the email said.

A second approach was made on 4 December 2024. Sreenivasan read to the court from an email in which Low recorded the details of a phone call he had made to Ms Sing on 10 December 2024, two days before publication. 

Low's record of the call stated he had made clear to Ms Sing that the article "was not intended to be a story about Dr Tan's purchase or cast aspersions on him." Ms Sing had confirmed Dr Tan would not be commenting.

Dr Tan said he vaguely recalled being told of the call. He said his response had again been: "What is there to comment? There is no change."

Caveat and public record

Dr Tan confirmed his Brizay Park purchase was not caveated. He agreed that non-caveated transactions do not appear in URA's Realis database at the time of the transaction. He agreed that SLA's Integrated Land Information Service (INLIS) requires a directed, property-specific search and cannot be used to search multiple properties simultaneously.

He told the court that a Realis subscription costs approximately S$2,000 per year, while an INLIS search costs S$16 per directed query. He said researchers would typically use Realis first to identify areas or properties of interest and then use INLIS for specific directed searches.

He said when the Realis and INLIS systems were used together in this way, they complemented each other and allowed a researcher to identify and then confirm a specific transaction.

Sreenivasan also put to Dr Tan that a member of the public could not conduct a general search across all properties on INLIS simultaneously. Dr Tan agreed that a search on INLIS had to be property-specific.

The opening statement — paragraph 2

Sreenivasan directed Dr Tan to paragraph 2 of the ministers' joint opening statement, reading the passage into the record.

He noted that "from the get-go, the article uses charged language to draw in the ordinary reasonable reader in Singapore," particularly concerning the "sensitive issue for locals that Singapore has granted citizenship to wealthy migrants who are paying large sums of money for private properties," a situation described as a "privilege granted by Singapore's law minister."

Sreenivasan put to Dr Tan that the ability to buy GCBs is a privilege the government affords only to citizens and to a small number of foreigners who have received approval from Singapore's law minister. He put to Dr Tan that a citizen who had been granted citizenship did not require the law minister's approval to buy a GCB.

Dr Tan agreed: "A citizen does not require approval from the government to buy a GCB. Only foreigners require approval from the government to do so."

Sreenivasan put to Dr Tan that paragraph 2 of the opening statement was therefore an inaccurate representation of what the article said. Dr Tan said: "I disagree."

He said the paragraph had to be understood in the context of the entire opening statement and in the context of the article's use of language. He said words such as "shrouded," "secrecy," and "cloaking" were used to suggest that privileges were being granted.

Sreenivasan told Dr Tan he was familiar with the ministers' case and was not going through the entire opening. The judge intervened and said she did not need Sreenivasan to put the question further. She said the issue of meaning was before the court.

The sensitive issue question

Sreenivasan asked Dr Tan whether it was a sensitive issue for locals that Singapore had granted citizenship to wealthy migrants who were paying large sums of money for private properties.

Dr Tan said the question was "too all-encompassing." He said: "I think it will be sensitive depending on the segments of our locals that would be affected."

He explained that "sensitive issue" is an overly broad term when describing local concerns. Sharing his own background of growing up in public housing, he noted that for the “first half” of his life, he "really wasn't bothered about wealthy migrants paying large sums for private properties such as GCBs" as they were inaccessible to him. Rather, he stated his priority was "getting the next BTO flat."

Sreenivasan acknowledged Dr Tan's point and noted that both men were of a similar age group and that in their younger years there had been less concern about new citizens in Singapore. He put to Dr Tan that in recent years there had been far more reason for that concern. Dr Tan agreed: "In recent times, I would say that there will be a lot more interest."

Sreenivasan then put the specific sentence from the opening statement to Dr Tan again and asked for a direct answer: "Is it a sensitive issue for locals that Singapore has granted citizenship to wealthy migrants who are paying large sums for private properties?"

Dr Tan answered: "Yes."

Procedural matters — the rule in Brown v Dunn and the state of cross-examination

Sreenivasan indicated at the close of Dr Tan's examination that day that he was guided by directions given by the judge in an earlier sitting. He said that since he had already put much of the defence case through Shanmugam, he did not intend to repeat every proposition to Dr Tan. He noted that the rule in Brown v Dunn — a rule of fairness requiring counsel to put their case to a witness — remained applicable to anything specific to Dr Tan alone.

Singh said he would not object to that approach on the basis that Sreenivasan had already put the relevant matters to Shanmugam and that both clients would therefore know what the defence case was.

The judge directed that Sreenivasan would be given the first half hour on the morning of 10 April 2026 to complete his cross-examination of Dr Tan. 

The trial continued on 10 April 2026.

---

Editor's note: The Online Citizen received POFMA Correction Direction POFMA-DC-2024-12-03d on 23 December 2024 in connection with its own reporting on the GCB transactions described in this case. The Online Citizen does not agree with that direction.

Court proceedings on 9 April 2026 were attended by a TOC correspondent. This report draws on correspondent notes, reports from mainstream media (CNA, Mothership & ST) and primary sources. Direct quotes from proceedings are reproduced as accurately as possible from correspondent notes. The substance and context of all quoted exchanges are faithfully represented.