Lee Hsien Loong v Leong Sze Hian [2021] SGHC 66 Impartiality 107 While the defendant took issue with Dr Phan’s expertise and impartiality, I do not find that there was any lack of impartiality as had been argued by the defendant. The thrust of the defendant’s submissions in this regard related to Dr Phan’s grant from the government for research funding, and the fact that his AEIC shadowed that of the plaintiff. 108 I do not find that the grant affected the credibility of any part of Dr Phan’s report or his testimony. Grants, particularly, government-related grants, are the lifeblood of academic research, and it is to be expected that many academic experts would have received a grant in one form or another. For an expert’s credibility to be impugned, there has to be some evidence put forward that the grant has somehow created a real and substantial risk of the expert opinion being subverted, breaching the obligation owed by the expert to the Court. There was no such evidence here. 109 As for the shadowing of the words of the plaintiff’s affidavit, deponents should generally depose using their own words, but some editing is to be expected. While there was some unfortunate similarity in language used between Dr Phan and the plaintiff’s affidavits, I do not find that the shadowing of the plaintiff’s words here went towards the substance of what Dr Phan had given evidence on. There was no indication that the words used conveyed anything other than what Dr Phan intended, and, in any event, the crux of Dr Phan’s evidence on the cascade effect and his estimates of the Post’s reach in this case were his own. I thus did not accept the defendant’s attempts to impugn Dr Phan’s credibility in this regard. 58