Davos Man and Khodorkovsky

Wall Street Journal

The Russian phrase for it is pryamoi razgovor, and it’s rare to hear from Russia’s political elite: straight talk. But that’s what a senior adviser to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev delivered last week about the latest show trial of former oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Mr. Khodorkovsky was Russia’s richest man until he earned the ire of Vladimir Putin by supporting liberal political causes and attempting to open his oil company to the West. Imprisoned in 2003 on charges of tax evasion, he was set to go free this year. But he was retried last year for different crimes and sentenced to six more years in Siberian prison.

“I think that a significant part of the international community will have serious questions” about the case, said Medvedev aide Arkady Dvorkovich to the Russian online newspaper gazeta.ru on January 19. “The assessment of the risks of working in Russia will increase.”

The Duke University-trained economist noted that the verdict’s impact will be gauged “literally within a week,” as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland gets underway on Wednesday. “We will see how members of the Russian delegation will be questioned about this, and then the attitude of investors will be known,” said Mr. Dvorkovich.

We don’t expect Davos Man to dwell on the moral rot of Putinism, but Mr. Khodorkovsky’s plight certainly represents the commercial dangers of what some call Russia’s “legal nihilism.” So do the cases of, among others, Royal Dutch Shell and Hermitage Capital. Both experienced, to different degrees, the regime’s power to confiscate private property and make business rivals disappear.

“What must be going through the head of the entrepreneur . . . looking today at our trial and knowing that its result is absolutely predictable?” Mr. Khodorkovsky asked last month in court. “The obvious conclusion a thinking person can make is chilling in its stark simplicity: The security services can do anything. There is no right of private property ownership. A person who collides with ‘the system’ has no rights whatsoever.”

Even Mr. Medvedev commented last month that “the investment climate in our country, to put it mildly, leaves something to be desired.” Rising oil prices will help the Kremlin, but it still needs many more deals like Pepsi’s recent $5.4 billion takeover of a Russian dairy and juice producer.

So when Russian officials are on the prowl next week in Davos, it would behoove the world’s financiers to comment about Mr. Khodorkovsky—and ask whether their potential investments would be more secure than his were. hairy girl hairy girl https://zp-pdl.com https://zp-pdl.com/online-payday-loans-cash-advances.php займы онлайн на карту срочно