Posts Tagged ‘independent’
The verdict that finally goes against libel tourism: Fatal blow for individuals with little or no link to UK trying to bring claims
The use of the English courts by individuals with little or no link to the United Kingdom to bring expensive libel proceedings was dealt a likely fatal blow yesterday after judges threw out two defamation suits brought by foreign claimants.
Bill Browder, the millionaire hedge fund owner who has led the campaign for justice over the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, won the dismissal of the case brought against him by a former Russian police officer accused of playing a part in the 2009 death of the tax adviser while in custody.
Mr Justice Simon, sitting in the High Court, struck out the lawsuit brought by Pavel Karpov, a retired interior ministry investigator, after ruling that he “cannot establish a reputation” in England which would justify his claim that he was libelled by Mr Browder being heard in this country.
Lawyers said the ruling, which accompanied a separate judgment throwing out a defamation suit brought by a Serbian tobacco magnate on similar grounds, sets a precedent which will make it far more difficult for litigants who are unknown in Britain to use the courts to seek libel damages.
The practice of so-called “libel tourism”, under which international claimants have been able to file cases in London for alleged libels principally committed outside the UK, was already due to become more restricted when the 2013 Defamation Act comes into force.
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Andy McSmith’s Diary: How Tory right wing makes Britain an unlikely bedfellow of Putin’s party
David Cameron heads off to Russia on Thursday for the G20 summit of world leaders, promising that he is not going to shy away from tackling Vladimir Putin, pictured, about a couple of very serious differences between Russia’s regime and ours.
While Syria is the bigger and more urgent, the Foreign Office has said that the Prime Minister will also raise the question of the law that the Russian parliament passed in June, banning the “promotion of non-traditional sexual relations”.
What with that and the suspicious deaths of the Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, and the defector, Alexander Litvinenko, you might think that the British Conservatives are not exactly soulmates with Putin’s United Russia party.
But here is a strange thing: whenever the parliamentarians who make up the Council or Europe meet, almost all the leading European centre-right parties – including Germany’s Christian Democrats, whose leader is Angela Merkel, and France’s Union pour un Mouvement Populaire, founded in 2002 by Jacques Chirac – go into one room, while the Tories walk wistfully by and into another room, to commune with the delegates from United Russia.
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The final act of the Magnitsky farce
The Magnitsky affair has plenty of rivals for “most shameful moment since Stalin”. But, as far as is known, not even the Soviet Union put dead men on trial.
Predictably, the farce of the Sergei Magnitsky trial has ended in absurdity. The lawyer who exposed epic corruption in Russia’s bureaucracy before being beaten to death in police custody has himself now been convicted – posthumously – of corruption.
Perhaps the only surprise is that Mr Magnitsky’s embalmed corpse, or a simulacrum of it, was not propped up in the dock, in a ghastly parody of El Cid. Even so, it is hard to disagree with the judgement of William Browder, the head of the investment firm which Mr Magnitsky represented before he died, that the guilty verdict was “one of the most shameful moments for Russia since the days of Joseph Stalin”. The Magnitsky affair has plenty of rivals for that distinction. But, as far as is known, not even the Soviet Union put dead men on trial. Mr Browder himself was convicted in absentia, and sentenced to nine years in jail.
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The height of absurdity’: Moscow court finds whistle-blowing Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky guilty of fraud – three years after his death
One of the more grotesque trials of recent Russian history came to an end as a Moscow court posthumously convicted the whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky of tax evasion.
Mr Magnitsky died in prison in 2009 after being ill-treated and not receiving treatment for pancreatitis. He had uncovered what he described as a massive fraud scheme that he alleged involved a number of Russian officials, but was then locked up by some of the same officials he was investigating.
Moscow’s Tverskoy Court was packed with journalists, but the defendant’s cage stood empty, as Judge Igor Alisov handed down the bizarre verdict. He convicted Mr Magnitsky of tax evasion, though for obvious reasons was unable to hand down a sentence.
“Magnitsky masterminded a massive tax evasion scheme in a … conspiracy with a group of people,” said Mr Alisov in barely audible tones as he took 90 minutes to read out the verdict. The court claimed that Mr Magnitsky was aided by William Browder, the British head of Hermitage Capital, the investment fund that had hired Mr Magnitsky to look into corruption. Mr Browder was sentenced in absentia to nine years in prison.
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Magnitsky affair: Russia has allowed suspected killers of a whistleblowing lawyer to escape with impunity, says damning report
Council of Europe investigation into death of tax specialist who uncovered a $230m fraud against the state rubbishes Russian version of events.
Russia has allowed the suspected killers of a whistleblowing lawyer to escape with impunity and instituted a high-level “cover up” of corruption which the international community must do more to counter, according to a damning report.
A six-month investigation into the death of Sergei Magnitsky by the Council of Europe found that the Moscow authorities had mounted “belated, sluggish and contradictory” investigations into the death of the tax specialist who uncovered a $230m (£149m) fraud against the Russian state.
Mr Magnitsky, who was working for British hedgefund Hermitage Capital Management when he uncovered the fraud in 2008, was arrested by the same tax investigators he had accused and held for a year in Russian prisons before dying from a serious untreated health condition following a beating on the eve of his death.
The 41-page report by a Swiss MP stops short of naming Mr Magnitsky’s alleged killers but in a move which will further heighten diplomatic tensions over the case, it describes that case as “emblematic” of corruption and human rights abuses in Russia and calls on the international community to consider further measures to pressure Moscow into acting on the case.
The United States has already imposed visa restrictions and frozen assets of 60 Russian officials linked to the death of Mr Magnitsky, provoking a retaliatory ban from Moscow on American citizens adopting Russian children.
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Russian bid to keep tabs on London based campaigner fails
Financier Bill Browder is at forefront of a campaign seeking justice for Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who exposed corruption before dying in a Moscow prison.
Interpol has rejected a request from Russia to monitor a financier leading the campaign over the death of a whistle-blowing lawyer – after deciding that Moscow’s demand was “predominantly political”.
The Russian authorities, who have already issued an arrest warrant for US-born hedge fund manager Bill Browder, had asked the international policing body to place him on a list requesting its 190 member countries to alert Moscow of his whereabouts. The move could have presaged an attempt by Russia to have London-based Mr Browder arrested and extradited to face fraud charges.
But Interpol this weekend refused the request and issued a public statement saying it had removed all information about him from its databases.
The decision is a significant victory for Mr Browder, who has been at the forefront of a campaign to seek justice for Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who exposed corruption before dying in a Moscow prison in 2009 after being beaten and then denied essential medical treatment. Mr Browder, whose Hermitage Capital Management employed Mr Magnitsky, has said he is the target of a politically motivated vendetta driven by Russian president Vladimir Putin in revenge for exposing the Magnitsky case.
In a statement, Hermitage Capital said: “The decision by Interpol to delete the Russian ‘all-points bulletin’ for William Browder is a clear sign that a deeply corrupt regime will not be allowed to freely persecute whistle-blowers who have exposed it.” займы онлайн на карту срочно займ на карту онлайн https://zp-pdl.com/emergency-payday-loans.php www.zp-pdl.com buy over the counter medicines
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Russia asks Interpol to monitor movements of British hedge fund boss Bill Browder
Russia has applied to Interpol to monitor the travel and whereabouts of a British hedge fund boss wanted by Moscow who is at the heart of a diplomatic stand-off over the alleged killing of whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The international policing body will decide this week whether to approve the request from the Russian authorities to issue an “All Points Bulletin” for US-born financier Bill Browder, whose Hermitage Capital Management employed Mr Magnitsky prior to his death in a Russian prison in 2009.
The death of Mr Magnitsky, who died at the age of 37 after being beaten and then denied essential medical treatment, has become a symbol of corruption in Russia and prompted a law in the United States imposing visa bans and freezing the assets of officials involved in the alleged killing.
A Russian court last month issued a warrant for the arrest in absentia of Mr Browder, who has led a campaign for justice for Mr Magnitsky, on tax evasion charges which the businessman said are part of a politically-motivated vendetta against him by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Independent understands that the application from the Russian Interior Ministry stops short of a request for a so-called Interpol “red notice” requesting the arrest of a wanted individual.
Instead it will request Interpol’s 190 member countries to alert Moscow to his whereabouts, potentially allowing the Russian authorities to make a direct demand for him to be detained if he travels abroad.
An Interpol committee will meet on Thursday to decide whether to accept the Russian request, which can be rejected if it is found to breach Article Three of its constitution which states that it is ‘strictly forbidden for the organization to undertake any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character’.
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Russia wants Interpol to impose ‘All Points Bulletin’ on British hedge fund boss Bill Browder
Russia has applied to Interpol to monitor the travel and whereabouts of a British hedge fund boss wanted by Moscow who is at the heart of a diplomatic stand-off over the alleged killing of whistle-blowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The international policing body will decide this week whether to approve the request from the Russian authorities to issue an “All Points Bulletin” for US-born financier Bill Browder, whose Heritage Capital Management employed Mr Magnitsky prior to his death in a Russian prison in 2009.
The death of Mr Magnitsky, who died at the age of 37 after being beaten and then denied essential medical treatment, has become a symbol of corruption in Russia and prompted a law in the United States imposing visa bans and freezing the assets of officials involved in the alleged killing.
A Russian court last month issued a warrant for the arrest in absentia of Mr Browder, who has led a campaign for justice for Mr Magnitsky, on tax evasion charges which the businessman said are part of a politically-motivated vendetta against him by Russian president Vladimir Putin.
The Independent understands that the application from the Russian Interior Ministry stops short of a request for a so-called Interpol “red notice” requiring the arrest of a wanted individual.
Instead it will require Interpol’s 190 member countries to alert Moscow to his whereabouts, potentially allowing the Russian authorities to make a direct demand for him to be detained if he travels abroad.
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US risks angering Russia by publishing blacklist
Washington risked reopening a diplomatic rift with Moscow following the publication of a blacklist of Russian officials who are banned from the United States because of their alleged involvement in the death in custody of the whistleblowing lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
Earlier in the day Moscow had warned that any decision to go ahead and release the list could damage relations between the two countries. Washington passed legislation banning the officials in December but had so far put off making the list public until now.
According to the list released last night on the Treasury’s website there are 18 officials who have been named. It was compiled in the wake of the arrest and death in custody of Mr Magnitsky, a father of two and Moscow-based lawyer who helped expose a multi-million dollar tax scam that was allegedly carried out by criminal underworld figures allied with Russian officials and police officers.
Among those included on the blacklist is Pavel Karpov, a former interior ministry police officer who is currently suing William Browder in the UK courts for libel. Mr Browder, a millionaire hedge fund manager and staunch critic of official corruption inside Russia, employed Mr Magnitsky to uncover a $230million tax scam against a series of subsidiaries that were once owned by his company Hermitage capital.
After publicly naming a number of officials Mr Magnistky was arrested for tax evasion and died nine months later in prison. His family, rights groups and Russian’s own human rights investigation body say there was evidence he was beaten in custody and denied vital medication.
Mr Browder has named Mr Karpov as one of the officials behind the scam. However the former detective has vehemently denied any involvement and has launched a libel case against him in the High Court.
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