A Singapore court has ordered Bloomberg and reporter Low De Wei to pay S$460,000 ($356,000) to two ministers who sued for defamation over an article referencing their property transactions.

The piece, titled "Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy," described luxury bungalow purchases via shell companies. It named K Shanmugam and Tan See Leng as examples, noting that Shanmugam sold a bungalow for S$88m and Tan bought one for S$27m.

The ministers argued the article unfairly linked their deals to secrecy and money‑laundering concerns; Bloomberg said it merely cited them as newsworthy examples. The judge found that, reading the article as a whole, it implied wrongdoing.

Bloomberg complied with a POFMA correction notice and added a disclaimer, while Singapore has a history of using defamation suits to curb criticism, citing cases such as the Far Eastern Economic Review, The Economist, and the New York Times.