Ng Kai Hoe Raymond v Wong Peng Kong [2026] SGDC 136

The Claimant, Mr Ng Kai Hoe Raymond, commenced a defamation action in DC/OC 1154/2025 (“OC 1154”) against the Defendant, Mr Wong Peng Kong, in respect of an article shared on the Defendant’s Facebook account.

The Defendant did not participate in OC 1154, and a default judgment was entered in favour of the Claimant with damages to be assessed (the “Default Judgment”).

I heard the Claimant’s evidence in relation to the assessment of damages. After considering the evidence and despite the Defendant not participating in the proceedings, I award nominal damages of $1 to the Claimant. In essence, there was limited or de minimis publication of the libel, and in any event, the Claimant’s reputation is not deserving of legal protection. I set out my full grounds below.

Background

Parties

The Claimant holds himself out to be a businessman who operated a franchise scheme known as “Vendshare” (the “Vendshare scheme”), where individuals or “franchisees” could co-own stakes in coffee vending machines located across Singapore.

Not much is known about the Defendant, aside from the fact that he has a Facebook account.

The Online Article

The Claimant’s claim in OC 1154 is founded on an article published on or around 17 March 2021 on the “RICE” website (the “RICE Website”), which is operated by a Singapore-incorporated company, Rice Media Ptd Ltd (“Rice Media”). The article is titled “These Singaporeans Lost Money in a Financial Scheme. What Can They Actually Do About It?” (the “Online Article”), and can be accessed using the website link: (17 March 2021). The relevant extract of the Online Article is reproduced below:

Action against Rice Media

On 10 June 2021 (ie, around 3 months after the Online Article was posted on the RICE Website), the Claimant and two companies involved in the Vendshare scheme, namely, Candle Consulting Pte Ltd and Vendshare Pte Ltd (collectively, the “Vendshare Plaintiffs”) commenced a defamation action regarding the contents of the Online Article in DC/DC 1231/2021 (“DC 1231”) against Rice Media, its director, and the author of the Online Article (collectively, the “Rice Media Defendants”). In DC 1231, the Vendshare Plaintiffs sought an injunction and damages against the Rice Media Defendants.

However, DC 1231 did not get substantively off the ground.

(a) On 3 March 2022, the Court ordered the Vendshare Plaintiffs to disclose six categories of documents to the Rice Media Defendants (the “Discovery Order”).

(b) As the Vendshare Plaintiffs failed to do so, an unless order was imposed on 24 June 2022 (the “Unless Order”). The Unless Order essentially provided for the dismissal of DC 1231, by striking out the statement of claim, if the Vendshare Plaintiffs did not disclose the documents ordered under the Discovery Order by 29 June 2022.

(c) The Vendshare Plaintiffs did not comply with the Unless Order, and on 30 June 2022, DC 1231 was accordingly dismissed, and judgment was entered in favour of the Rice Media Defendants (the “DC 1231 Judgment”).

(d) Subsequently, on 30 September 2022, the Vendshare Plaintiffs applied in DC/SUM 3112/2022 (“SUM 3112”) to set aside the DC 1231 Judgment. After a series of hearings, SUM 3112 was dismissed on 3 July 2023, and the Vendshare Plaintiffs did not appeal against this decision.

In other words, the Claimant failed to obtain any relief or damages against the Rice Media Defendants in respect of the Online Article, and the Online Article continues to remain accessible on the RICE Website.

The Defendant’s Facebook Post

On or around 18 March 2021, the Defendant “shared” the Online Article on his Facebook account (the “Facebook Post”). Based on the sole screenshot adduced by the Claimant for these proceedings, the Facebook Post elicited a total of one reaction and one share. It is not known who reacted to, or shared, the Defendant’s Facebook Post.

Figure 1: Screenshot of the Defendant’s Facebook Post.

According to the Claimant, he was first alerted to the Defendant’s Facebook Post “sometime in 2024 or 2025 … by his part-time staff, one Mr Lee Yi Heng (“Mr Lee”), who had encountered it online”. It is unclear why Mr Lee offered this information to the Claimant more than 3 years after the Defendant’s Facebook Post, but the Claimant avers that “on and off, there are parties sending me notifications of people defaming me.”

Thereafter, on or around 27 February 2025, the Claimant wrote to the Defendant to demand that he: (a) delete the Facebook Post; (b) issue a public apology; and (c) pay a settlement amount of $5,000 to the Claimant. This letter further stated that if these demands were not met by the stipulated deadline, the Claimant would commence legal proceedings against the Defendant and “leave it to the [Court] to decide damages up to S$ 50,000” [emphasis in original]. The Defendant did not respond to the Claimant’s letter.

Action against the Defendant

On 24 June 2025, the Claimant commenced OC 1154 against the Defendant. In his statement of claim, the Claimant pleads that the following words from the Online Article (see [6] above) are defamatory (the “Offending Words”):

According to the Claimant, the sting of the Offending Words is that he has engaged in criminal and dishonest conduct, and the exploitation of vulnerable people, through the Vendshare scheme, and has faced no consequences thus far.

On 9 January 2026, the Claimant filed the notice of appointment for assessment of damages, and a hearing for the assessment of damages was fixed on 9 April 2026 (the “Assessment hearing”). The Defendant was absent for the Assessment hearing even though the Claimant had informed him of the same by way of registered post on 24 March 2026. As I was satisfied that the Defendant had been given adequate notice, I proceeded with the Assessment hearing in the Defendant’s absence.

The Claimant and his wife, Ms Iris Koh Hsiao Pei (“Ms Koh”), gave evidence at the Assessment hearing. After the evidence-taking was completed and given that the Assessment hearing proceeded on an uncontested basis, the Claimant was content to rely on his opening statement to make oral closing submissions. In this regard, the Claimant submits that he should be awarded $60,000 in general damages and $10,000 in aggravated damages based on the seriousness of the defamatory imputations, the Claimant’s personal and professional reputation, and the Defendant’s aggravating conduct.

The law

The principles governing the assessment of damages in defamation actions have been covered extensively in our case law. It suffices for me to highlight a few general points on assessment proceedings that are conducted in a defendant’s absence, before setting out the circumstances where an award of nominal damages is appropriate.

Legal implications where the defendant is absent

Where default judgment is entered in a defamation action due to a defendant’s failure to file and serve the notice of intention to contest or not contest, there are broadly two legal implications that follow.

Second, while a defendant’s failure to file a defence may mean admitting to the facts pleaded in the statement of claim to substantiate damage, the quantum of damages will have to be assessed, and cannot follow as a matter of admission: see Lee Hsien Loong v Xu Yuan Chen and another suit [2022] 3 SLR924 (“LHL v XYC”) at [127]. In other words, a claimant still bears the burden of proving his loss or damage by evidence, and the assessment is not made by default despite the defendant’s absence at the assessment hearing: see U Myo Nyunt (alias Michael Nyunt) v First Property Holdings Pte Ltd [2021] 2 SLR 816 at [47]. With that said, a claimant’s task of discharging his burden is made much easier because the Court is essentially left with the evidence and submissions from only one side: see KS v LHY at [23].

Circumstances justifying the award of nominal damages

The tort of defamation is concerned with protecting a person’s reputation (ie, what other people think of him): see Golden Season Pte Ltd and others v Kairos Singapore Holdings Pte Ltd and another [2015] 2 SLR 751 at [35]. General damages in defamation actions are compensatory in nature and serve to: (a) console a claimant for the distress he has suffered from the publication of the statement; (b) repair the harm to his reputation; and (c) vindicate his reputation: see KS v LHY at [27]. Specifically, in relation to the last compensatory objective of vindication, this refers to the process of erasing the effects of the defamation and making good a reputation that has suffered actual damage, through awarding a sum sufficient to convince a bystander of the baselessness of the charge: see Wright v McCormack [2024] 2 WLR 869 (“Wright”) at [47].

In determining the appropriate quantum of general damages, the Court will consider a host of factors, including: (a) the nature and gravity of the defamation; (b) the mode and extent of the publication; and (c) the conduct, position and standing of the claimant: see KS v LHY at [28]. As a starting point, the law presumes that a claimant suffered some damage to his reputation as a result of the defamation, and there is no need for the claimant to go further to prove that any particular person has thought worse of him because of the publication: see LHL v XYC at [75]. However, this presumption of damage is not absolute: see LHL v XYC at [75].

In certain circumstances, the Court may award nominal damages if it is satisfied that there was no harm or damage to a claimant’s reputation: see The Law of Damages (Andrew Tettenborn gen ed) (LexisNexis, 2nd Ed, 2010) (“The Law of Damages”) at para 2.11. In my view, there are at least two clear instances where this may arise, that being: (a) where the publication of the defamatory material is limited; or (b) where the claimant’s reputation is not worthy of legal protection.

(1) Limited Publication

The extent of publication is an important factor in the assessment of damages (see A Balakrishnan and others v Nirumalan K Pillay and others [1999] 2 SLR(R) 462 at [48]), as it reflects the scale of the distribution of the defamatory material (see KS v LHY at [45]), and the corresponding damage to a claimant’s reputation. As such, where publication of the defamatory material is limited, nominal damages may be appropriate if the damage to a claimant’s reputation is in effect de minimis. This proposition finds support from the English Court of Appeal decision in Jameel (Yousef) v Dow Jones & Co Inc [2005] QB 946 (“Jameel”), which was subsequently applied by the Singapore High Court in Qingdao Bohai Construction Group Co, Ltd and others v Goh Teck Beng and another [2016] 4 SLR 977 (“Qingdao Bohai”).

(a) Jameel involved the publication of an alleged libel through an article posted on the website of the “The Wall Street Journal Online”. The claimant commenced action in England even though the publication in question was made to no more than five individuals within jurisdiction, of whom three were associates of the claimant. The English Court of Appeal found the claimant’s claim to be an abuse of process, and stated (at [68]–[70]):

(b) Qingdao Bohai similarly concerned alleged libel through the internet, this time in the form of 12 online articles posted on various websites. The Court, having found that the element of publication was not established, held that the decision in Jameel was an additional reason to dismiss the action since the publication in Singapore would have been very exceedingly limited and restricted, and not of a sufficient number to justify a judgment for (any) damages (at [61], [145]–[149], and [166]).

While the decisions in Jameel and Qingdao Bohai did not, strictly speaking, involve an assessment of damages following a default judgment, both did find that the respective claimants in each case would not be entitled to substantial damages due to the limited publication of the defamatory material. By parity of reasoning, the Court in an assessment of damages must be entitled to award nominal damages when there is only limited publication, to reflect the insignificant damage to the claimant’s reputation and how little is at stake.

(2) Reputation unworthy of legal protection

In appropriate cases, the Court may find that a claimant’s reputation is so undeserving of protection that he is only entitled to nominal damages: see Tang Swea Phing v Chan Tam Hoi (alias Paul Chan) and another appeal [2025] 4 SLR 1104 (“Tang Swea Phing”) at [85]. This, arguably, is another manifestation of a lack of harm or damage caused to one’s reputation, which justifies an award of nominal damages. Put simply, if a claimant is of little or no worthwhile reputation, there can hardly be any damage to his reputation caused by the defamatory publication in the first place.

In deciding whether a claimant’s reputation is undeserving of protection, the Court may consider any evidence properly admitted that would be relevant in assessing what award of damages would be necessary and proportionate to the legitimate aims of compensation and vindication: see Wright at [61]. At a minimum, this would include facts directly relevant to the contextual background in which a defamatory publication was made, any evidence that tends to establish that the defamatory statement complained of was partly true, or evidence that an aspect of the claimant’s reputation, being one which the Court considers relevant in all the circumstances, was at least partially undeserved so as to reduce the need for vindication: see Tang Swea Phing at [91]–[94]; and Wright at [61]. The following three decisions are apt to illustrate the varied circumstances under which the Court has awarded nominal damages due to an undeserving reputation.

The first authority, Grobbelaar v News Group Newspapers Ltd [2002] 1 WLR 3024, involved a plaintiff footballer who sued for articles which alleged that he had “thrown” or fixed football matches. The defendant failed to prove that the plaintiff had in fact “thrown” matches, but the evidence showed that he had a corrupt agreement to do so and had in fact taken bribes. The House of Lords awarded the plaintiff nominal damages of £1, as the plaintiff had no reputation deserving of legal protection. In the words of Lord Bingham of Cornhill (at [24]):

The second authority, Tang Swea Phing, concerned loans extended by the first defendant to companies controlled by the plaintiff. Owing to the companies’ failure to repay the loans, the first defendant engaged the second defendant, a debt collection company, which served defamatory letters of demand (that identified the plaintiff as a “debtor” and demanded the repayment of $120,000) at various locations. At first instance, the District Court awarded $10,000 in damages to the plaintiff for the defamation. On appeal, Pang Khang Chau J reduced the damages to a nominal sum of $1, and reasoned as follows (at [96]):

In the third authority, Wright, the claimant brought a claim in libel against the defendant in respect of the defendant’s messages on Twitter and his YouTube broadcast, which alleged that the claimant’s claims to be the inventor of the Bitcoin cryptocurrency were fraudulent. At first instance, the Court allowed the claim but awarded nominal damages of £1. This was because the claimant had, in the course of the proceedings, lied and attempted to deceive the Court to exaggerate the harm caused to his reputation, specifically, he had alleged that he was disinvited from conferences due to the defamatory publications (which was found to be untrue). On appeal, the English Court of Appeal affirmed the award of nominal damages, and explained the relevance of the claimant’s lies in the following terms (at [68], [69] and [76]):

In the final analysis, a claimant should only be compensated for injury to a reputation that he actually possesses. If it transpires, whether from the facts that existed at the time of the publication or subsequently at trial, that a claimant has little or no worthwhile reputation which could conceivably be damaged by the sting of the defamatory remarks, it would be excessive and unjust for substantial damages to be awarded since there is no injured reputation to repair or vindicate, and no justifiable reason to console the claimant for any distress suffered.

Decision on damages

With the above principles in mind, I now explain why the Claimant is only deserving of an award of nominal damages. Having considered the relevant factors (see KS v LHY at [28]), my decision rests on the following: (a) there was limited publication of the Online Article through the Defendant’s Facebook Post; and (b) leaving aside the issue of publication, the Claimant’s reputation is not deserving of legal protection.

Before setting out my detailed grounds, I preface my reasons with two observations.

First, the libel here consists of the Defendant’s republication of the Online Article on his Facebook account. The Defendant’s republication is a new and separate instance of defamation (see Review Publishing Co Ltd and another v Lee Hsien Loong and another appeal [2010] 1 SLR 52 at [212]), and it goes without saying that the Claimant will need to prove the reach or the audience to this republication. Accordingly, insofar as the Claimant is alleging damage to his professional reputation and corresponding distress from the aforesaid harm, he must show that this is attributable to the Defendant’s republication.

Second, while the evidence and arguments in this case are inevitably from one side (ie, the Claimant’s), this does not mean that the Court will approach the case with blinkers and ignore evidential weaknesses or ineluctable conclusions to be drawn from the facts. Put simply, the Court will not blindly accept everything the Claimant says, and will assess and decide based on the totality of the evidence.

Limited Publication of the Online Article

I turn now to consider the extent of publication in this case.

To begin with, posting material on the Internet alone, or showing that a post is accessible in Singapore, is not publication for the purpose of the law of defamation: see Qingdao Bohai at [37]-[38]. There is no presumption that material on the Internet has been published, and a claimant will need to go further to establish, on the balance of probabilities, that a third-party reader viewed the material in Singapore: see Qingdao Bohai at [37]–[41].

Internet publication can be proven directly by showing that at least one other person, other than the claimant, saw or read the online material in Singapore: see Qingdao Bohai at [38]. Alternatively, Internet publication can be proven indirectly by evidence that supports an inference of publication to a substantial number of third-party readers in Singapore, such as the number of “likes”, “reactions”, “shares” or comments to the post, the number of “friends” or “followers” a defendant has on the social media platform, and the privacy settings of the post: see Qingdao Bohai at [38] and [136]; and Lee Hsien Loong v Leong Sze Hian [2021] 4 SLR 1128 at [45]. While the fact of publication is not in issue due to the Default Judgment, the extent of publication remains highly relevant to the assessment of damages (see [25] above).

The Claimant contends that the publication in this case reached a “substantial and indeterminate number of persons”. This contention is not borne out by the evidence, and the extent of publication of the Online Article through the Defendant’s Facebook Post is minimal at best.

(a) For a start, there is no direct evidence of widespread publication. Further, the Claimant’s statement that Mr Lee encountered the Defendant’s Facebook Post online (see [11] above) is inadmissible hearsay evidence, and in any event, there is no evidence that Mr Lee accessed the Defendant’s Post in Singapore.

(b) The indirect evidence relied on by the Claimant also does not support an inference of publication to a substantial number of third-party readers in Singapore. The Defendant’s Facebook Post attracted a meagre total of one reaction and one share (see Figure 1 above). While the Defendant has around 584 “friends” on Facebook, which is by no means a large number, very little is known about the Defendant (see [5] above), and it is therefore unclear how many of these “friends” are even based in Singapore. The Claimant alleges that the privacy settings of the Defendant’s Facebook Post was set to “public”, but also claims that the Defendant blocked him on Facebook and that he “no longer had direct access to verify the status of the [Facebook Post]”. Even if I accept the Claimant’s account that the Defendant’s Facebook Post was once public (presumably when the Claimant accessed it in 2024 or 2025), the fact that the Facebook Post only garnered (at most) 2 responses after more than 3 years shows that it did not gain any traction, and most certainly not to a level that can support an inference of substantial and extensive publication.

Thus, in view of the manifestly limited extent of publication, the damage to the Claimant’s reputation from the Defendant’s Facebook Post is minimal or de minimis. This finding alone is sufficient to justify my award of nominal damages.

Claimant’s Reputation Undeserving of Legal Protection

The Claimant and Ms Koh gave extensive testimony on the alleged harm to the Claimant’s reputation, and the resultant distress caused to him.

(a) In his Affidavit of Evidence-in-Chief, the Claimant stated as follows on the harm to his reputation and standing:

(b) The Claimant also gave the following evidence regarding the alleged distress he experienced:

(c) According to Ms Koh, the harm caused by the Defendant’s Facebook Post extended beyond business interactions and affected his personal and family relationships:

At the Assessment hearing, I specifically queried both the Claimant and Ms Koh as to whether the alleged harm and distress was caused by the Defendant’s Facebook Post, and both maintained that it was.

In my view, it beggars belief that the Defendant’s Facebook Post, with one reaction and one share (see Figure 1 above), and the extremely limited publication (see [40] above), can cause the purportedly widespread reputational harm and severe distress alleged. There is no evidence that the Claimant’s business associates, friends, or family even knew (much less knew of) or are remotely connected with the Defendant, and it is extremely improbable that industry contacts and the Claimant’s extended family are now avoiding him due to the Defendant’s Facebook Post. While it may be conceivable that the Claimant was affected by persons coming across the Online Article, there are a host of possibilities as to how that could have occurred (which do not involve the Defendant’s republication). This includes direct access through the RICE Website and Rice Media’s social media accounts, which the Claimant failed to curtail following the dismissal of DC 1231 (see [7]–[9] above). As such, the Claimant has not shown, based on the evidence before me, how the widespread reputational harm and severe distress as alleged are even attributable to the Defendant’s Facebook Post (see [35] above). Given the inherent improbabilities of these assertions, I do not accept the Claimant’s evidence.

This leads me to my second point, which is that I am not impressed with the Claimant’s blatant attempts to exaggerate the extent of harm and distress suffered, and I find the exaggerations here to be of a similar nature to those in Wright (where the claimant falsely exaggerated that he was disinvited from conferences (see [31] above)). Given that the sting of the libel here is dishonesty and unethical conduct (see [13] above), the Claimant’s attempts to exaggerate the damage suffered during the course of these proceedings is a disreputable fact relevant for the assessment of damages, especially since the damages he seeks is to protect and vindicate his “visible and credible public profile in business, consultancy, fundraising, technology and professional speaking, where trust, integrity and public confidence were material assets” [emphasis added].

There is another aspect of this case which troubles me, that being the Claimant’s lack of candour regarding the dismissal of DC 1231.

(a) DC 1231, being the first defamation action commenced by the Claimant regarding the Online Article, is relevant under s 16 of the Defamation Act 1957 (2020 Rev Ed) that allows the Court to take into account other actions commenced by a claimant for damages in respect of same or similar defamations: see Doris Chia, Defamation: Principles and Procedure in Singapore and Malaysia (LexisNexis, 2nd Ed, 2024) at para [16-121].

(b) In his evidence, the Claimant attempted to downplay the dismissal of DC 1231, contending that it “arose from procedural and evidential issues, in particular the failure to produce documents concerning the financial performance of the two corporate plaintiffs, [Candle Consulting Pte Ltd] and [Vendshare Pte Ltd]”. However, I pointed out to the Claimant that his account was not entirely true, as there was also a failure on his part to disclose correspondence with the Singapore Police Force on any investigations arising out of the Vendshare scheme, which led to the imposition of the Unless Order and the subsequent dismissal of DC 1231.

For completeness, the Claimant informed me of the existence of other pending defamation actions regarding the Online Article, and stated that he filed the present action in OC 1154 without Candle Consulting Pte Ltd and Vendshare Pte Ltd “to avoid the issue of res judicata”. Undoubtedly, this statement suggests that the manner in which the Claimant has commenced the various defamation actions after the dismissal of DC 1231 calls for a proper explanation. No such explanation has been provided thus far, but as the full facts of DC 1231 are not before me, I will not comment on this statement any further, save to say that I am left with many unanswered questions.

Ultimately, the Claimant’s attempts to exaggerate the damage he suffered (see [44]–[45] above) is sufficient for me to find that his reputation is undeserving of legal protection, and it would be excessive and unjust in this case for substantial damages to be awarded. This is another standalone ground to justify my award of nominal damages.

Costs

For the foregoing reasons, I award the Claimant nominal damages of $1.