Singapore Press Holdings (SPH), which has a near monopoly of newspaper publishing in the city-state, said on Wednesday it filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Yahoo Inc, alleging the internet giant reproduced news from its newspapers without permission.

Singapore is the headquarters for Yahoo's operations in Southeast Asia, a key market for the company where strong growth in mobile communications over the past decade has fueled internet connectivity in a region with around 500 million people.

In our statement of claim, we cited as examples 23 articles from our newspapers which Yahoo! had reproduced over a 12-month period without our license or authorization, SPH spokeswoman Chin Soo Fang said in an email to Reuters.

SPH filed the writ of summons and statement of claim to the Singapore High Court on Friday and served them to Yahoo Southeast Asia on Monday.

Yahoo officials were not immediately available for comment.

Lawyers from Bird & Bird LLP represent Yahoo according to a Straits Times article, while SPH said Wong Partnership represents Singapore Press.

(Reporting by Harry Suhartono; Editing by Matt Driskill)

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