Lee Hsien Yang pays Shanmugam, Vivian over $600,000 for defaming them in Facebook post

Source: Straits Times
Article Date: 02 Oct 2024
Author: Tham Yuen-C

His Facebook post accused them of getting preferential treatment in renting bungalows.

Mr Lee Hsien Yang has paid Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan more than $600,000 for defaming them in a social media post about their rental of two black-and-white bungalows in Ridout Road.

The payment comes after he was taken to court by the two ministers in August 2023.

He had accused them in a July 23, 2023 Facebook post of getting the Singapore Land Authority to grant them preferential treatment, including cutting down trees and funding renovations on the two state-owned properties.

On Sept 29, Mr Lee, who is the youngest child of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and brother of Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, wrote on Facebook that he had paid the ministers a total of $619,335.53 over the defamatory statements.

He noted that the amount was “equivalent to 13.6 months rental for the two Ridout houses”, and added that it was unfortunate the ministers did not pursue the case in the English courts.

He also said the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s family home at 38 Oxley Road is his “significant asset” in Singapore. Mr Lee Hsien Yang said he paid the ministers “in order to try to honour my father’s wishes in connection with his home and to allow Wei Ling, who is ill, to continue to stay at 38 Oxley Road”. He was referring to his sister, Dr Lee Wei Ling.

Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan rebutted Mr Lee’s claims on Oct 1 in two largely similar Facebook posts.

They said he had no answer when they previously pointed out that his libels were published in Singapore and were primarily meant for, and concerned, Singaporeans.

“Now, he says that ‘it is unfortunate that the ministers chose not to pursue the case in the English courts’. That is still not an answer,” they wrote.

“We urged him to cross-examine us and be cross-examined, in the full view of everyone, so that he can show Singapore, and the rest of the world, that he is right and we are wrong.

“However, on the first day of the trial when we took the stand, ready to be cross-examined, he was a no-show, deciding not to take us on.”

In 2023, Mr Lee had received a correction direction under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act two days after he had put up the offending Facebook post.

He then put up a correction notice alongside the post, but also stated in another post that he stood by what he had said.

Both ministers sent him legal letters, asking him to apologise, withdraw his allegations and pay damages of $25,000 each, which would be donated to charity.

But he did not do so and they filed separate defamation suits against him in the High Court.

Mr Lee did not respond to the lawsuits and did not appear in court to defend himself, and the ministers were granted default judgments against him in November 2023.

In May 2024, the High Court ordered him to pay each of them $200,000 in damages, including $50,000 in aggravated damages, with High Court Judge Goh Yihan noting that Mr Lee had acted with malice as he knew that the defamatory statements were not true.

The ministers had said the money would be donated to charity – a point they reiterated on Oct 1.

They called Mr Lee’s claim that he had paid damages to allow Dr Lee to continue staying at 38 Oxley Road extraordinary.

“Mr Lee Hsien Yang knows that the defamation cases have nothing to do with Mr Lee Kuan Yew. They also have nothing to do with 38 Oxley Road, which he carefully describes as his ‘significant asset in Singapore’,” they said.

“We did not once say that we intended to enforce our judgments on 38 Oxley Road.”

They noted that Mr Lee had “conveniently omitted to mention” that he owns at least one other asset in Singapore, based on public information.

The value of this asset would have been “more than sufficient” to satisfy his debt, they said.

“If he did not pay on the judgment, that asset could have been subject to enforcement,” they added.

Mr Lee had put up the defamatory post a month after the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau released findings on the rental of the Ridout Road properties, stating that there had been no wrongdoing or preferential treatment given to the two ministers.

Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean had also conducted a review of the matter, and found that the two ministers had taken appropriate steps to avoid any conflict of interest and had conducted themselves properly in the rental transactions.