Nicholas Tan and his handbag company Aupen were issued a POFMA notification in a branding game that he is struggling to win

Nicholas Tan, the founder of the Singaporean handbag brand Aupen, and his company were issued a Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act correction direction, popularly known as POFMA. According to CNA, Mr Tan’s Instagram posts and stories in reaction to the lawsuit filed against his brand “contained allegations about the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) and the design of the country’s trademark laws”. The POFMA issued was in response to alleged multiple false statements that Tan made on his personal and Aupen’s IG accounts between September 9 and 16. The Ministry of Law stated that these posts were “false statements of fact” regarding the IPOS, including that the agency advised him not to pursue a trademark dispute with Target and that Singapore’s trademark laws favor foreign businesses over local ones.

According to the government fact-checking website, Factually, and the Ministry of Law, Tan’s social-media statements were untrue: IPOS did not provide legal advice or discourage Mr Tan from pursuing legal action against Target. False claims, the government stated, jeopardize confidence in the nation’s trademark regime. The POFMA correction directions require Mr Tan and Aupen to post a notice with a link to the government’s clarification. At the time of this post, that link has not appeared on the Aupen IG page. What transpired that incurred the handbag designer’s frustration with IPOS, resulting in his misguided social media posts, is not immediately clear. But whether this deserves a POFMA is the question now on so many lips. A moment of digital dismay do, as we have repeatedly seen, become a permanent search result.

What industry observers suggested is that Mr Tan’s mode of operation is still in beta, as seen in the missteps that have plagued the brand. The POFMA notice, the Target trademark dispute, and earlier allegations about the origin of its products, all point to an entrepreneur struggling to handle the complexities of a growing international brand. As one marketing professional put it, Mr Tan is “professionally naive” and his brand “too publicity-driven”. Its founder’s questionable move was to air what was essentially a private business dispute in a highly public forum. Rather than sticking to conventional legal recourse, Mr Tan chose to go to social media, a risky approach that can generate public sympathy, but can also backfire spectacularly, as it appears to have in this case. By making specific and serious accusations against a public institution, which turned out to be false, the entrepreneur committed a significant gaffe that has now added a layer of legal and reputational damage to an already difficult business challenge.

By creating a public saga, MrTan hoped for sympathy in a branding game he was struggling to win. However, with the government’s official clarification, that narrative crumbled. The Aupen IG posts look to be an attempt to leverage public opinion without considering the consequences of making spurious claims, especially in a city-state with strict laws against such actions. The details of the IPOS meeting remain unknown to the public, as only the IPOS’s side of the story and timeline have been shared. You’d think that a big-brand aspirant would be adequately lawyered up, but the actions taken by Mr. Tan, which led to a POFMA, suggest either a failure to seek adequate legal advice or a decision to disregard it. In a curious display of professional miscalculation, Nicholas Tan’s online campaign not only landed him a public correction order, but also shot down his own brand’s credibility in the process. On the Aupen homepage, the last line asks visitors to “Sign up for our Sample and Archive Sale.” You don’t sell your archives unless you are writing the business’s final chapter.

Update (22 Sep 2025, 5.30pm): Moments ago, Aupen posted a correction notice on their Instagram page. It stated that “an earlier post dated 15 Sep 2025, that has since been deleted, communicated a false statement of fact”. The message was folled by a link to a Factually page

Illustrations: Just So