Case Explained: Shanmugam and Tan See Leng in High Court hearing over defamation suit against TOC’s Terry Xu – Legal Perspective

SINGAPORE – The chief editor of The Online Citizen (TOC) Terry Xu failed to turn up for a High Court hearing on Feb 26, held to determine the amount of damages over

defamation suits filed by two Cabinet ministers.

Xu, who had earlier failed to file a defence in the

defamation suits over a Bloomberg article

published by TOC on property transactions, did not have a legal representiative in court.

Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs K. Shanmugam and Minister for Manpower Tan See Leng, who attended the hearing, took the stand briefly to confirm the affidavits they had filed in court.

On the stand, both Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan answered a few clarification questions from Justice Audrey Lim regarding the dates of their ministerial appointments.

Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, who acts for both ministers, submitted arguments in an opening statement, which did not specify the amount of damages sought.

In the opening statement, Mr Singh noted that the effect of Mr Xu’s failure to file a defence is that the facts in the ministers’ statements of claim are taken to be admitted by the defendant.

At the end of the 30-minute hearing, Justice Audrey Lim told Mr Singh to file closing submissions in two weeks, and within seven days of the filing, to serve the documents on Mr Xu by e-mail and personally to his stated address in Taiwan.

The defamation suits against Mr Xu centred on a Bloomberg article published on TOC’s website in December 2024.

The Dec 12 article, written by Mr Low De Wei, was about good class bungalow transactions in Singapore.

Headlined “Singapore mansion deals are increasingly shrouded in secrecy”, the article mentioned property transactions involving Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan.

The article was subsequently picked up by media outlets such as TOC and The Edge.

Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan indicated in December 2024 that they would

act against media outlets

for publishing statements that they considered libellous.

On Jan 6, 2025, the ministers filed separate defamations suits against Bloomberg and Mr Low.

In their statements of claim, the ministers said certain statements in the article were false and baseless, and were calculated to disparage and impugn them, as well as the ministerial offices they held.

Bloomberg and Mr Low have denied that the words complained of in the article are defamatory.

Trial dates for the case against Bloomberg and Mr Low

have been set for April

.

The lawsuit against Mr Xu was also filed on Jan 6, 2025. The ministers were granted permission by the court on Jan 28 that year to serve the legal papers on Mr Xu in Taiwan.

On Aug 26, 2025, Justice Audrey Lim granted default judgment in favour of Mr Shanmugam and Dr Tan, with damages to be assessed.