Posts Tagged ‘Hermitage’
Russia reaches for the stars with its own Silicon Valley
Skolkovo’s facilities are designed to attract the best minds in science to Moscow, but investors are still warned to be wary.
Russia is planning another revolution. Moscow has pinned its future on transforming 400 hectares (1.5 sq miles) of nondescript farmland 20 miles west of the Kremlin into a base camp for the next generation of Mark Zuckerbergs.
By 2015 these desolate fields will be transformed into a city of 35,000 boasting some of the most advanced research centres in the world, if you believe the Kremlin’s plans. This is Silikonnovaya Dolina: Russia’s Silicon Valley.
It’s no pipe dream, according to promotional material handed out to British scientists, entrepreneurs and investors last week as part of a global mission to drum up interest in the Skolkovo Innovation Centre, President Dmitry Medvedev’s pet project.
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Russia’s Silicon Valley woos British investors
A delegation from Russia’s proposed ‘Silicon Valley’ development, Skolkovo, came to the UK this week in an effort to persuade UK businesses to invest in the high-tech hub being built on the outskirts of Moscow.
They faced awkward questions, however, about the political landscape that companies might face if they transferred operations to Russia. Denis MacShane, Labour MP for Rotherham, wrote to Lord Green, the trade minister, criticising the UK’s Department of Trade and Industry for hosting the conference, and pointing to the difficulties that many UK companies had faced in Russia.
“I believe the Government should add…an official health and safety warning so British businesses seeking to be involved in Russia do so with their eyes open to the risks they run,” Mr MacShane wrote.
He cited the case of Hermitage Capital, a hedge fund which was forced to leave Russia, and whose lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in jail after uncovering an alleged $230m corruption scheme by high-level officials.
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Russia’s Perversion of Justice
From the gulags to the “doctor’s plot,” Russian history is replete with politically orchestrated show trials. But an upcoming case may achieve the unlikely feat of raising the bar for legal and political corruption. That is because the defendant in the case, attorney Sergei Magnitsky, has been dead for two years. What’s more, his trial is being sought by the very government and police officials who may have been complicit in his death.
Earlier this month, officials with the Russian Interior Ministry announced their plan to resubmit a tax evasion case that would see Magnitsky go on trial posthumously. Magnitsky first incurred these officials’ ire in 2007, when he was an attorney with of the Moscow-based American law firm Firestone Duncan and an outside counsel for the investment fund Hermitage Capital. In June 2007, police from the ministry raided both Firestone Duncan and Hermitage Capital’s Moscow offices on the pretext of tax evasion charges. In the course of the raid, they took away the official documents and seals of the fund’s Russian investment companies – despite the fact these documents were outside the scope of their search warrant.
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Magnitsky’s case will be sent to court immediately after defense lawyers study it – source (Part 2)
The tax evasion case of Sergei Magnitsky, a Hermitage Capital hedge fund lawyer who died in a Moscow jail in 2009, will be sent to court immediately after the defense of the late lawyer examines it, a source at the Russian Interior Ministry told Interfax on Friday.
“The pre-trail investigation is over. The case will be sent to court as soon as defense lawyers examine it,” the source said.
Posthumous proceedings against Sergei Magnitsky will be passed over to a court as Magnitsky’s legal representatives “refuse to consent to the termination of the criminal proceedings against him,” the Interior Ministry said on Tuesday.
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Russia’s posthumous trial of lawyer shows corruption is still rife
This week it was announced that the Russian authorities are planning to resubmit a tax evasion case for trial. Nothing out of the ordinary, you might think, except for the fact that the defendant is deceased.
The accused in question is Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow prison cell in November 2009. Magnitsky was initially detained in November 2008 on suspicion of assisting one of his clients – UK-based investment fund Hermitage Capital – evade about $17.4m in taxes. Although the original allegations were lodged against Hermitage, during the investigation Magnitsky discovered what he believed to be a cover-up for Russian state officials to embezzle an estimated $230m from the Russian treasury.
Subsequently, Magnitsky testified against two senior officials in the interior ministry, Lt Col Artyom Kuznetsov and Major Pavel Karpov, and accused them of tax fraud. Shortly after, Magnitsky himself was arrested and detained in prison on charges of fraud and tax evasion. It is thought that the charges placed against him were designed to make him back down and sweep the whole embezzlement scandal under the carpet. However, Magnitsky never made it to trial. After a year of being detained, he died in a prison cell aged 37 and the exact causes and circumstances surrounding his death remain a mystery.
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Lawyers for Magnitsky family to protest investigator actions
The lawyers for the relatives of Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a detention facility, will not become familiar with the tax evasion case against him.
“We will not read the case materials because the investigation was conducted and the case was resumed with violations of the law,” Nikolai Gorokhov, a lawyer for Magnitsky’s mother, told Interfax.
Gorokhov said the investigator’s decision to stop working on the tax case against Magnitsky will be contested. “We will file another complaint against the investigator’s actions,” the lawyer said.
The lawyer did not make any predictions about the investigator’s actions and their ability to bring the Magnitsky case to court. “I cannot predict their actions because they are doing everything illegally,” he said.
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Russia Plans to Retry Dead Lawyer in Tax Case
The police in Russia plan to resubmit for trial a tax evasion case in which the primary defendant died in detention more than two years ago, his former employer said Tuesday.
The trial of the defendant, Sergei L. Magnitsky, would be the first posthumous prosecution in Russian legal history, according to a statement by the former employer, Hermitage Capital.
The death of Mr. Magnitsky, a lawyer, in November 2009 drew international criticism over Russia’s human rights record, especially after accusations arose that he had been denied proper medical care. The State Department has barred officials linked to Mr. Magnitsky’s prosecutions from entering the United States. Parliaments in nine European countries are considering similar bans.
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Moscow plans to put dead lawyer on trial
Russian investigators have said they may prosecute a dead lawyer who worked for a foreign investment fund in the latest bizarre twist to a case that has come to exemplify investor fears about Russia’s rule of law.
Investigators said they would proceed with a posthumous trial against Sergei Magnitsky over tax fraud following a judicial precedent set last summer, allowing cases to be concluded in spite of the death of the defendant.
The decision comes two years after Magnitsky, a lawyer for Hermitage Capital, died in a pre-trial detention centre where he was held for almost a year after accusing the police of complicity in a $230m tax fraud.
Although investigators have accused Magnitsky and Hermitage’s chief executive William Browder with tax evasion, a presidential human rights commission found last summer that the charges against the lawyer had been fabricated. The federal prison service has already assumed partial responsibility for Magnitsky’s death, which occurred after he was denied access to urgent medical care.
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Lawyers accuse Magnitsky investigator of exceeding powers – Hermitage
The Moscow Bar Association has rejected a request by a Russian investigator, who asked for a defense attorney to be appointed for the family of late Hermitage Capital lawyer Sergei Magnitsky against their will, the company said.
“Article 51 of the Russian Penal Code does not stipulate the provision of legal aid in appointing an attorney for the accused. The Bar Association does not provide any particular lawyer by the appointment of preliminary investigation officers,” head of the bar association Alla Zhivina said in a letter to Moscow Central District’s investigator Boris Kibis.
An extract from the document was contained in a Hermitage press release obtained by Interfax on Friday.
“The bar’s letter to investigator Kibis also points out that he exceeded his powers by naming a specific lawyer he would like to ‘appoint’ for the Magnitsky relatives against their will,” the investment fund said.
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