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SINGAPORE: A court on Tuesday (Mar 31) ordered Mr Terry Xu, chief editor of socio-political website The Online Citizen (TOC), to pay Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng S$420,000 (US$325,400) for defaming them in an article about transactions they made involving Good Class Bungalows (GCBs).
TOC had published an article in December 2024 titled "Bloomberg: Nearly half of 2024 GCB transactions lack public record, raising transparency concerns".
This was off the back of a Bloomberg article, titled "Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy", which was published on Dec 12, 2024.
Mr Xu was found liable for defamation against the two ministers in a judgment given in August 2025.
In a written judgment on Tuesday, Justice Audrey Lim found that Mr Xu had published the defamatory material “recklessly, without considering or caring whether it was true”.
Mr Xu refused to apologise or remove his article despite being given the opportunity to do so when Mr Shanmugam’s and Dr Tan’s lawyers’ letters were sent to him.
In those letters, the lawyers stated that the two ministers would treat the matter as resolved if Mr Xu complied with their demands.
“He continued to refuse to remove the article from the TOC website and TOC’s social media platforms. Mr Xu’s conduct clearly showed that there was malice,” said the judge.
Justice Lim also described Mr Xu’s defamatory allegations as “very grave”.
“The allegations attack their character by portraying them as individuals who are part of an opaque system and circumvented transparency requirements to avoid scrutiny of their conduct, therefore suggesting that the claimants had done something improper," she said.
“As Cabinet ministers, these allegations disparage not only the claimants’ personal but professional reputation as well.”
According to court documents, the offending words in the TOC article include paragraphs stating that Singapore's exclusive GCB market, increasingly defined by secrecy and the use of trusts, is at the centre of a growing debate over transparency.
The article cited Bloomberg's reporting that Dr Tan purchased a GCB in Brizay Park in 2023 for S$27.3 million.
It said that this was not Dr Tan's first foray into the GCB market, adding that the Business Times reported that he acquired a GCB along Peirce Road for nearly S$24 million while serving as managing director and CEO of IHH Healthcare.
The offending words in the article also include paragraphs about a transaction by Mr Shanmugam, where he sold a GCB in Queen Astrid Park for S$88 million.
Mr Xu relocated to Taiwan after being sentenced separately for criminally defaming Cabinet members.
In her judgment on Tuesday, Justice Lim said Mr Xu also continued to draw attention to his article, through various publications, despite the commencement of court proceedings against him.
“Preliminarily, I find that there is no prejudice to Mr Xu arising from the claimants’ reliance on such evidence, nor was he taken by surprise,” said Justice Lim.
She added that Mr Xu refused to comply with the injunction order made against him in August 2025, which restrained him from publishing or disseminating the defamatory allegations, despite a copy of the order being sent to the email address he used to correspond in relation to the proceedings.
“Despite thus being aware of the injunction order, Mr Xu did not remove the article from, and article remains published and available on, the TOC website and TOC’s social media platforms”, said the judge.
“Where a defendant publishes the defamatory material recklessly, without considering or caring whether it was true, he is treated as if he knew it to be false, and is taken to have acted in malice.”
Justice Lim awarded Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan S$210,000 each, comprising S$160,000 in general damages and S$50,000 in aggravated damages. She asked the parties to submit their arguments on costs.
The ministers have also sued Bloomberg and its reporter for defamation, with a trial slated for April.
