Lee Hsien Yang pays Shanmugam, Balakrishnan more than S$600,000 for defamation

SINGAPORE: Mr Lee Hsien Yang has paid ministers K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan more than S$600,000 (US$466,000) for defaming them over their rental of state properties at Ridout Road.
The payment comes after a High Court decision in May, ordering Mr Lee to pay S$200,000 each to the two ministers. On top of the damages, he was required to pay costs of S$51,000 to each minister.
Mr Lee, the brother of former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong, made the defamatory comments in a Facebook post in July 2023, suggesting that Mr Shanmugam and Dr Balakrishnan had acted corruptly by having the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) give them preferential treatment in the rental of the black-and-white bungalows at Ridout Road. 
Justice Goh Yihan said in his judgment that Mr Lee had “acted with malice” in posting the offending words, justifying not only higher damages but aggravated damages.
In a Facebook post on Sunday (Sep 29), Mr Lee said he paid the ministers a total of S$619,335.
“My significant asset in Singapore is 38 Oxley Road,” Mr Lee said, referring to the house of his late father, Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.  
“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, I have made this payment to the ministers,” he added, naming his sister.
Both ministers responded to Mr Lee’s remarks with similar Facebook posts on Tuesday.
Mr Lee’s Sep 29 post “shows that he will say anything without regard to the facts”, said Dr Balakrishnan, who is the foreign affairs minister.
He and Mr Shanmugam, the law and home affairs minister, described Mr Lee’s comments on his payment and the Oxley Road property as “extraordinary”. 
“Mr Lee Hsien Yang knows that the defamation cases have nothing to do with Mr Lee Kuan Yew,” both ministers said.
“They also have nothing to do with 38 Oxley Road … We did not once say that we intended to enforce our judgments on 38 Oxley Road,” they added.
“What he has conveniently omitted to mention is that he owns at least one other asset in Singapore (based on publicly available information), whose value would have been more than sufficient to satisfy his debt. If he did not pay on the judgment, that asset could have been subject to enforcement.”
Mr Lee said the amount he paid to the ministers was equivalent to 13.6 months of rent for the two Ridout properties. 
In response, both ministers said they had repeatedly stated they would donate the damages to charity. 
They also rebutted Mr Lee’s comment that it was “unfortunate” the ministers did not pursue the defamation case in England. 
Mr Shanmugam said they previously pointed out that they sued Mr Lee here for his libels published in Singapore, “which were primarily meant for, and concerned, Singaporeans”. 
“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,” he added. 
“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.”
Mr Lee, who is not in Singapore, did not appear in court in May to defend himself in the lawsuit brought by the two ministers. 
Justice Goh therefore said he had to decide on the basis of the claimants’ case in the absence of any countervailing material Mr Lee could have produced.
“Based on the evidence before me, I find that the defendant knew that the offending words were false, that he published them recklessly, and/or without considering or caring whether they are true or not,” said the judge.
He added the Mr Lee’s offending post came after the anti-graft agency already found no preferential treatment given to the ministers over the Ridout Road properties.