Posts Tagged ‘browder’
MEPs to Mogherini: Stop ignoring us on Russia sanctions
A cross-party group of MEPs has urged the EU foreign service to stop ignoring the European Parliament on Magnitsky sanctions.
Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian anti-corruption activist, died in jail in 2009 in what EU Council chief Herman Van Rompuy once called an “emblematic case” for lack of law and order in Russia.
The EU parliament has urged EU diplomats in four resolutions over the past four years to follow the US in blacklisting the Russian officials implicated in the killing.
This week, 23 MEPs from centre-right and liberal groups in the EU assembly urged foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini to “present a proposal to the Council of Ministers to sanction these 32 individuals”.
They said in a letter, seen by EUobserver: “As the new head of the European External Action Service, what nearest actions do you plan to undertake … to make sure there is no further impunity in the Magnitsky case?”.
MEPs have no formal powers on foreign affairs.
But Mogherini’s spokeswoman, Maja Kocijancic, told EUobserver the letter is “a new opportunity to consider the case”.
She noted that top EU officials, such as Van Rompuy and Mogherini’s predecessor, Catherine Ashton, on several occasions urged Russia to take action on the issue.
“So far we have not seen a satisfactory response”.
Read More →
Facebook
Twitter
Google Buzz
LinkedIn
del.icio.us
Google Bookmarks
Yahoo! Buzz
Tumblr
StumbleUpon
FriendFeed
NewsVine
Digg
Interpol Said To Eye New Russian Bid For Browder’s Arrest
Britain-based businessman William Browder says the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) will revisit Russia’s request for his arrest on charges linked to whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Moscow jail five years ago this week.
Interpol informed Browder that it will consider the request during a November 20-21 meeting at the organization’s headquarters in Lyon, France, he told RFE/RL.
Interpol has twice rejected earlier Russian requests for a so-called “red notice” against Browder, citing Russia’s “political” goals in the matter.
Russian prosecutors said in June that Interpol had decided to reconsider Russia’s request.
Interpol could not immediately be reached for comment.
Browder has led a global campaign for sanctions against Russian officials implicated in Magnitsky’s death on November 16, 2009.
A Russian court convicted Browder in absentia and Magnitsky posthumously on tax evasion charges last year, decisions slammed by Western governments and rights groups.
Browder told RFE/RL that the basis for Russia’s new push for an Interpol warrant against him is linked to Magnitsky’s posthumous trial, which he called “one of the most scandalous legal proceedings in legal history.”
“It’s surprising that Russia would have the nerve to use this as a basis to have me arrested, and it’s even more surprising that Interpol would even entertain this discussion,” Browder said.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Death of Hermitage Capital Management Tax Consultant Sergei Magnitsky
When a 37-year old auditor Sergei Magnitsky died in a Moscow prison, the incident generated international media attention. This factbox shows a detailed review of the incident and its subsequent development.
MOSCOW, November 16 (Sputnik) — Five years ago, on November 16, 2009, Sergei Magnitsky, a tax and legal consultant of the Hermitage Capital Management investment fund accused of corporate tax evasion, died at the Matrosskaya Tishina pretrial detention facility.
On November 24, 2008, Sergei Magnitsky, also a managing partner at the auditing company Firestone Duncan, was detained by the Moscow Police’s tax crimes division. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Interior Ministry, now the Investigation Department of the Russian Interior Ministry, charged Magnitsky with corporate tax evasion, while investigating the Hermitage Capital criminal case.
On November 26, Moscow’s Tverskoy District Court issued a warrant for Magnitsky’s arrest.
Hermitage Capital Management, a British investment fund, specializes in Russian market operations. In the early 2000s, the fund invested heavily in the Russian market. Hermitage was among the clients of Firestone Duncan, which provides legal services for taxes, auditing and accounting.
Russian law enforcement agencies charged the fund with failure to pay four billion rubles in taxes. In the summer of 2007, investigators conducted the first searches at the Hermitage Capital office and affiliated companies. The fund’s CEO, Bill Browder, claimed that Hermitage Capital had exposed the corruption fraud of the century in Russia, and that the 5.4 billion rubles paid by the fund had been embezzled by raiders.
Magnitsky was charged with committing crimes listed in Articles 33.3, 33.5 and 199.2 of the Russian Criminal Code (organization of and complicity in large-scale corporate tax evasion schemes by a group of persons by prior collusion).
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
U.S. Alleges Further Laundering in Magnitsky-Linked Case
A federal judge on Wednesday granted a request from U.S. prosecutors to file an amended complaint alleging further money laundering by a Russian businessman, as well as a forfeiture order narrowing the assets to be seized in the case.
U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa approved the request at a contentious hearing between prosecutors and lawyers for companies owned by Denis Katsyv, who is accused of laundering some of the proceeds of an alleged $230 million tax fraud in Russia exposed by deceased lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. The amended complaint, prosecutors said, provides additional allegations of money laundering and “significantly narrows” the amount of property the U.S. seeks to forfeit.
“It is necessary to have” the amended complaint and forfeiture order for the case to continue, said Judge Griesa.
The civil forfeiture case brought by the Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office in September 2013 alleged that Mr. Katsyv used some of the laundered money to buy real estate in New York. Prosecutors say a portion of the funds traveled through several shell companies into Prevezon Holdings, a Cyprus-based real estate company that laundered the money into its real estate holdings, including those subject to the forfeiture action.
Mr. Katsyv and his company, Prevezon Holdings, deny the allegations, having tried to dismiss the case in March, and through its lawyers they denied the new accusations raised Wednesday.
The amended forfeiture order, prosecutors said, seeks about $14 million in assets, including $10 million in property in New York and about $4 million, in euros, at an account in the Netherlands. The original forfeiture action sought all assets, known and unknown, tied to Mr. Katsyv and his partners; Judge Griesa had told prosecutors to restrain the order after hearing from lawyers for the defendants that unrelated assets in Russia and elsewhere were frozen.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Russian oligarch’s arrest a warning from Putin, says hedge fund boss
The arrest of one of Russia’s richest men last week was an attempt by President Vladimir Putin to protect himself from a palace coup, according to one of his most vocal critics.
Bill Browder, the hedge fund manager who has become a crusader against Russian corruption, said the arrest of Vladimir Yevtushenkov was intended to send a message to any oligarch plotting moves against Putin, as the value of their assets drops in the wake of western sanctions.
Yevtushenkov was released on Friday, after being put under house arrest for three days on charges of money laundering.
As the richest man to fall into the hands of the Russian justice system since Mikhail Khodorkovsky was arrested in 2003, Yevtushenkov’s detention heightened speculation that the Kremlin wanted to take control of his oil company, Bashneft – one of the few Russian energy companies still in private ownership.
Speaking before Yevtushenkov’s release, Browder said the arrest was “more motivated by paranoia than any demand for a particular asset”, because “Putin and his underlings can always steal these assets in any number of ways”.
“I don’t know if Yevtushenkov did anything more or less irritating to Putin than the other oligarchs. I just think [Putin] randomly picked one out to make sure none of the other oligarchs are going to start challenging him or start planning any palace coups.
“Now that their wealth has been diminished by Putin’s actions, they have a big incentive to act against Putin and he knows that.”
Russia’s main stock market, Micex, has lost 6% of its value since the west tightened economic sanctions against Russia in July over its threat to the sovereignty of Ukraine, and the value of the rouble has fallen to all-time lows against the dollar.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Former New York Prosecutor Faces Confidentiality Breach Hearing
John Moscow, a prominent former New York prosecutor, faces a hearing this week on whether he breached a prior client’s confidentiality when he began defending companies belonging to a Russian accused of buying Manhattan properties with the proceeds of a $230 million tax fraud.
Mr. Moscow is defending companies owned by Denis Katsyv that prosecutors allege funneled laundered money to buy the properties. Mr. Moscow was previously hired as an outside lawyer for London-based hedge-fund manager William Browder, a witness in the U.S. government case against Mr. Katsyv’s companies.
A New York judge will consider at a hearing Thursday whether Mr. Moscow and his law firm, Baker & Hostetler LLP, have information that will give them an advantage in questioning Mr. Browder.
“Our law firm concluded we had no conflict of interest; and our role as counsel is to insist the government prove its case,” Mark Cymrot, a BakerHostetler partner, told The Wall Street Journal.
The stakes are high, according to Lara Bazelon, visiting professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and co-chair of an American Bar Association ethics committee.
“If the judge finds that Mr. Moscow relied upon information that he learned as a matter of confidence from a past client, that would be a violation of the duty of confidentiality,” Ms. Bazelon said. “That would be a very strong finding, particularly against someone so high-profile and well-respected.”
Mr. Moscow spent three decades at the New York County District Attorney’s Office, serving as chief of the fraud bureau and deputy chief of the investigations division. He led the investigation of money laundering and fraud at the Bank of Credit and Commerce International in the 1990s.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
The man behind the Magnitsky Act explains why now is the time to go after the Russian elite’s assets
As much as everyone is very mad at Russia right now for its actions against Ukraine, it still isn’t exactly clear what will happen next. Might the United States and Western Europe send troops into battle against Russia? Even if Russia weren’t a nuclear power, that seems incredibly dangerous.
Instead, the discussion is moving to economic measures, with the Obama administration saying it is “highly likely” they will use sanctions against Russia.
However, at least one person is arguing that there may be another option, one that could zero in on the interests of the Russian elite more accurately without hurting the Russian public in general: a 2012 human rights law known as the Magnitsky Act.
“This is exactly what the Magnitsky Act was created for,” Bill Browder, founder of the investment fund Hermitage Capital Management explained in a phone call from his London base Monday morning. For Browder, his link to the act isn’t just political — it’s also personal. The man for whom “the Magnitsky Act” is named worked for him.
The story of the Magnitsky Act began in 2008, when Sergei Magnitsky, a Moscow-based lawyer working for the Hermitage Fund, testified in a Russian court that he had uncovered a huge scam by top police officials. According to Magnitsky, the officials had embezzled $230 million in taxes from money that Hermitage Fund companies had paid in 2006, with corrupt police officers using stolen corporate seals and documents seized in a 2007 raid on Hermitage’s Moscow offices to set up fake companies under the same names, and then used these fake companies to get a tax rebate.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Companies Linked To Ousted Ukrainian President Connected To Magnitsky Investigation
Documents found at Viktor Yanukovych’s country residence link his business activities to Russian corruption uncovered by lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Newly found documents show that three companies with links to ousted Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych are also connected to the money-laundering scandal uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who died in prison after exposing high-level fraud and embezzlement among Russian officials.
An investigation by Hermitage Capital Management, the investment firm for which Magnitsky was employed, shows the companies named in the documents uncovered at Yanukovych’s presidential palace are registered at the same United Kingdom address, and share the same offshore shell companies and Latvian directors as were found in Magnitsky’s investigation.
An employee of Hermitage, Vadim Kleiner, sifted through the documents uncovered by Ukrainian journalists after Yanukovych’s flight from Kiev and posted his findings to YanukovychLeaks.org, a website created to compile the nearly 200 folders of documents found at the estate. He found that three companies mentioned in the documents as holding some of Yanukovych’s assets or being otherwise tied to the president — Navimax Ventures, Roadfield Capital LLP, and Fineroad Business LLP — had strong links to entities exposed in Magnitsky’s investigation into $230 million in tax revenues which were stolen by Russian officials from Hermitage holding companies. The results of Kleiner’s inquiry were provided to BuzzFeed by Kleiner and William Browder, the head of Hermitage.
In his investigation, Magnitsky followed $40 million to a Latvian bank account for Technomark Business Ltd., a U.K.-registered company with an ownership in Nevis. Technomark shared the same registering address as Navimax, and the names of its Latvian directors also appear in documents relating to the other two companies.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
Bill Browder on Putin’s Russia
While the Winter Olympics in Sochi project a bright, white image, Bill Browder tells a darker story of theft, vengeance and death in a corrupt Russia
There is a darker side to the bright, white images of Russia that millions of Americans see coming from the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Bill Browder says he lived it and then had his life threatened as the victim of outrageous corruption perpetrated by the Russian government. Browder tells Scott Pelley this story of theft, vengeance and death for a 60 Minutes report to be broadcast Sunday, Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.
Read More →
- Facebook
- Twitter
- Google Buzz
- LinkedIn
- del.icio.us
- Google Bookmarks
- Yahoo! Buzz
- Tumblr
- StumbleUpon
- FriendFeed
- NewsVine
- Digg
