[3] Bowring returned to the UK and began a career in journalism which culminated in two years at the Investors Chronicle where he developed a taste for investigative financial reporting.
[3] Bowring's first step towards Asia was in 1972, to take up an opportunity with an about-to-be-launched Sydney business magazine Finance Week, what turned out to be a short-lived Financial Times-News Ltd partnership.
[4] The next year, he accepted an offer to move to Hong Kong to become business editor of the Far Eastern Economic Review and part-time correspondent for the Financial Times.
The case stemmed from a 1994 settlement between the three Singaporean leaders and the paper about an article, also by Bowring, that referred to "dynastic politics" in East Asian countries, including Singapore.
In response, media-rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders wrote an open letter to urge Lee and other top officials of the Singapore government to stop taking "libel actions" against journalists.