In the summer of 2006, Hugo Restall—editor-in-chief of the monthly Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER)—published an article about a marginalized member of the political opposition in Singapore. The piece asserted that the Singapore government had a remarkable record of winning libel suits, which suggested a deliberate effort to neutralize opponents and subdue the press. Restall hypothesized that instances of corruption were going unreported because the incentive to investigate them was outweighed by the threat of an unwinnable libel suit.

Singapore’s ruling family reacted swiftly. Lawyers for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father Lee Kuan Yew, the founder of modern Singapore, asserted that the article amounted to an accusation against their clients of personal incompetence and corruption. In a series of letters, the Lees’ counsel demanded a printed apology, removal of the offending article from FEER’s website, and compensation for damages. The magazine maintained that Restall’s piece was not libelous; nonetheless, it offered to take mitigating action short of the three demands. But the Lees remained adamant. Then, in a move whose timing defied coincidence, the government Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts informed FEER that henceforth it would be subject to new, and onerous, regulations.

These actions were not without precedent. Singapore was an authoritarian, if prosperous, country. The Lee family—which claimed that the country’s ruling precepts were rooted in Confucianism, a philosophy that vested power in an enlightened ruler—tolerated no criticism. The Lees had been in charge for decades. The Singapore government expected domestic journalists to be team players, helping the city-state maintain stability and increase its wealth.

It tried to regulate the foreign press as well. Since 1987, when the government began to tighten controls, numerous foreign publications had run afoul of Singapore’s leaders and the Ministry of Information. The Economist , the International Herald Tribune , Time , and Newsweek had all clashed with the authorities, incurring steep fines or circulation caps. In 2006, however, there had been no legal action against the foreign press for four years.

When the Lees contacted FEER, the magazine sent the letter to the legal department at its parent company—Dow Jones. Dow Jones owned numerous publications that did business in Asia, including the Asian Wall Street Journal , Barron’s , and Dow Jones Newswires. The company had significant business interests in Singapore itself, including a sizeable number of readers, a printing plant and advertisers. But Dow Jones also had a reputation for contesting lawsuits that threatened either its reporters or the larger principle of freedom of the press.

After the Lee family rejected the first Dow Jones offer—and especially after the Singapore government upped the ante with the intervention of the Information Ministry—the media company had to make a strategic choice. Should it fight the case in court, despite a chilling history of failure to win press suits in Singapore? Should it do as other news organizations had done and pay the fine, print the apology, and get on with business? If FEER fought back, might the Singapore government decide to retaliate against other Dow Jones properties? What were the consequences if Dow Jones did not litigate the case? The Dow Jones lawyer, Stuart Karle—who also served as counsel for FEER—had to weigh the best interests not only of the Review , but of the larger publishing group he represented. ^[1]