SINGAPORE, July 14, 2026 (BSS/AFP) - Singapore's High Court ordered the Bloomberg news agency on Tuesday to pay Sg$230,000 (US$178,000) in damages each to two senior government ministers in a defamation case linked to a report on luxury property deals.

Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng filed the suits against the US-based global news organisation and its reporter Low De Wei in January 2025, alleging the article had harmed their reputations.

The story, headlined "Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy", looked at top-range houses called Good Class Bungalows and claimed many purchases did not have legal filings, making the deals harder to track.

The story referred to transactions involving the two cabinet ministers.

Justice Audrey Lim ruled in a written judgment released on Tuesday that the article had defamed the ministers.

"I have found that the natural and ordinary meaning of the Article is that the claimants took advantage of the absence of checks and balances or disclosure requirements to conduct their property transactions in a non-transparent manner, and that they did so to hide their transactions and avoid scrutiny that might extend to the possibility of money laundering," Lim said.

"These are grave assertions that directly impugn the claimants' personal integrity, character and professional reputation," she said.

She said the allegations also undermined the standing of their offices as cabinet ministers and their "moral authority to lead", noting that higher-standing claimants typically warrant greater damages.

Lim awarded Sg$170,000 in general damages and Sg$60,000 for aggravation, including malice, after rejecting Bloomberg's defence that the article was published in the public interest.

Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait said the agency was disappointed by the ruling "but we will of course respect it".

"Our newsroom -- and our reporter -- conducted themselves with integrity, and met all our editorial standards in preparing the story at the centre of this trial. We continue to stand by them," he said.

Shanmugam and another politician, Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, came under the spotlight in 2023 for renting huge, expensive bungalows, with some critics alleging they had been given preferential treatment in obtaining rental agreements.

The government cleared them of any wrongdoing after an investigation and said they had not abused their position to rent the houses -- a hot-button issue in the city-state, where most people live in government-built high-rise apartments.