Posts Tagged ‘libel’
Why we’re in need of our own Kremlin crusader…
The peoples of two countries own a great deal of gratitude to a man called Bill Browder. First of all, there are the citizens of Russia. And then there are the people of the UK.
Actually, I need to correct the latter sentence. It’s the people of the UK, excluding Northern Ireland. But more of that later.
As the super-wealthy boss of Hermitage Capital Management investment fund, Mr Browder is not immediately a figure you’d expect elicits much sympathy from ordinary folk.
But Bill Browder is different. He is at the centre of a long-running and dangerous feud with the government of Vladimir Putin.
It’s a complicated affair, but essentially Mr Browder, after 10 years of doing business in Russia, was blacklisted as a “threat to national security”.
According to The Economist, this was because he interfered with the flow of money “to corrupt bureaucrats and their businessmen accomplices”.
Corruption allegations in Russia aren’t new, but the Bill Browder affair degenerated into a spectacular morass of claim and counter-claim.
Infamously, his colleague Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian auditor and accountant, died on remand in a Russian jail after a life-threatening medical condition was not treated in spite of warnings.
Equally infamously, in July this year, Magnitsky was convicted of tax evasion, believed to be first trial in Russian history involving a dead defendant. It was state revenge of a most bizarre kind.
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Lifting England’s Libel Chill
Tourists will always flock to London to shop and see Big Ben. But they’re less likely to keep coming to settle legal scores after two High Court rulings Monday set clear limits against libel tourism in England and Wales. Along with new legislation from Parliament, the rulings might finally lift the chill on free speech and the free press under England’s plaintiff-friendly defamation laws.
The dispute at the center of Karpov v. Browder began with Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky’s prison death in Moscow in 2009. Magnitsky had been investigating a multimillion-dollar tax fraud by Russian officials against his client, Hermitage Capital. Pavel Karpov, a retired Moscow policeman, claimed that Hermitage CEO William Browder defamed him in a 2011 BBC interview, a 2012 article in Foreign Policy magazine, and in online videos about Magnitsky’s case.
Russian courts dismissed Mr. Karpov’s civil and criminal suits, so he took his case to London. Mr. Browder lives in Britain and is a U.K. citizen, but he argued before the High Court that Mr. Karpov has no reputation in England and Wales for Mr. Browder to have besmirched. Mr. Karpov rebutted that he has former schoolmates and an ex-girlfriend who live in England, and that he had previously traveled there “on five or so occasions.”
Justice Peregrine Simon threw the case out. Mr. Karpov’s “connection with this country is exiguous,” Justice Simon concluded, “and, although he can point to the [videos’] continuing publication in this country, there is ‘a degree of artificiality’ about his seeking to protect his reputation in this country.”
Mr. Karpov’s real intent—as he admitted in his libel claim—is to fight the sanctions against him imposed by America’s Magnitsky Act, for which Mr. Browder campaigned vigorously. The 2012 law prevents Mr. Karpov from entering and making financial transactions in the U.S. Justice Simon declared that the English justice system was hardly an appropriate forum to pursue that fight, especially considering that Russian courts had already rejected Mr. Karpov’s complaints.
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Dr Andrew Foxall on BBC Newsnight about libel tourism
Director of the Russia Studies Centre at the Henry Jackson Society, Dr Andrew Foxall, spoke to BBC Newsnight about the High Court’s decision to throw out a libel case against Bill Browder, the former client of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
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‘Libel tourism’ knocked back by UK court
Two rulings Monday from the U.K. High Court will make it harder for foreign litigants to use libel tourism — a practice known to pose a serious threat to press freedom and free speech far beyond Britain.
The High Court dismissed a libel suit against William Browder and his company brought by a former Russian police officer. Browder, left, a U.K. citizen who lives in London, had accused Pavel Karpov of being one of several corrupt officials complicit in the detention and death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who worked in Moscow for Browder and his company, Hermitage Capital Management.
Judge Peregrine Simon said Karpov had insufficient links to the U.K. ‘There is a degree of artificiality about his seeking to protect his reputation in this country,’ the judge said.
A second libel case unrelated to Browder’s was also thrown out by the High Court Monday. Serbian tobacco tycoon Stanko Subotic had sued banker Ratko Knezevic for libel. Knezevic had accused Subotic of murder, drug smuggling, and undergoing plastic surgery to hide his identify. Only one copy of the newspaper that carried the allegations, Politika, was found in Britain.
The court ruled that Subotic had suffered no damage in England even though there had been ‘minimal’ internet publication.
Libel tourism became widely known and feared after American writer Rachel Ehrenfeld was ordered to pay damages of £30,000 to a Saudi businessman she accused of funding terrorism. Only 23 copies of her offending book were sold in Britian, all through internet sales.
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Case of the Day: Karpov v. Browder
International Judicial Assistance
The case of the day is Karpov v. Browder, [2013] EWHC 3071 (QB). The case arose out of the death of Sergei Magnitsky in a Russian prison in 2009. Magnitsky had been investigating a tax fraud committed in Russia. His death in custody was widely condemned, and in fact, the US enacted a new statute, the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012, which prohibits those Russian officials the US government considered to be responsible for Magnitsky’s abuse and death from entering the United States or accessing the banking system.
The defendants in the case were Hermitage Capital Management Ltd., its CEO, William F. Browder, a UK affiliate of the Fund, and a Russian law firm, Firestone Duncan (CIS) Ltd. Magnitsky, before his death, had worked for Firestone Duncan. He was investigating an allegation that the Klyuev Gang, apparently an organized crime group, had conspired to take control of some Hermitage Fund subsidiaries and thus to procure an illegal $230 million tax refund from the Russian government, which went to the conspirators. After Magnitsky’s death, the defendants pushed for accountability. Their efforts included, notably, English- and Russian-language websites that featured videos. Mr. Browder also gave an interview to the BBC and wrote an article in Foreign Policy. In all of these materials, Pavel Karpov, a Russian investigator, was named. Karpov claimed that the materials were defamatory insofar as they implied that he was guilty of Magnitsky’s murder, that he was party to the tax fraud, and that he had previously trumped up charges against another, Fedor Mikheev, in order to cover up the fact that he (Karpov) had kidnapped Mikheev in an attempt to extort money from him.
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High Court delivers blow to libel tourism in Magnitsky libel ruling
The High Court has thrown out a libel case by a retired Moscow policeman against a UK fund manager in a case that has been labeled a blow to libel tourism.
UK businessman Bill Browder instructed HowardKennedyFsi (HKFsi) partners Mark Stephens and Sue Thackeray to lead the defence of defamation claims by Pavel Karpov.
Karpov turned to Olswang partner Geraldine Proudler to lead the claim, which related to allegations on a campaigning website run by Browder about the death of his lawyer Segei Magnitsky.
Magnitsky died in a Russian jail in 2009 but he was convicted of tax evasion in June in a posthumous Russian trial. Browder and his UK-based fund Hermitage Capital claimed Karpov was complicit in the “torture and murder” of Magnitsky on a website, Russian Untouchables, and in TV interviews.
Matrix Chambers’ Antony White QC, appearing for Browder, applied for the court to strike out the claim on the basis that it was an abuse of process.
One Brick Court’s Andrew Cadecott QC, instructed by Proudler for Karpov, had said in written submissions that “all the allegations are very serious and in the claimant’s case false”.
Dismissing the claim Mr Justice Simon ruled: “The claimant cannot establish a real reputation within this jurisdiction ufficient to establish a real and substantial tort.”
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Libel tourism dealt blow as Russian case is thrown out
Libel tourism suffered a serious setback yesterday when a judge threw out a claim by a Russian against a British-based fund manager.
Bill Browder, who successfully led a campaign for sanctions against Russians involved in a $230 million fraud, had been accused by Pavel Karpov, 36, of ruining his reputation.
Mr Browder had alleged that the Russian was behind a large-scale fraud on the Russian taxpayer and linked to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, an anti-corruption activist.
The case has been described as one of the worst examples of libel tourism, in which foreign nationals with little connection to Britain make use of the High Court to settle disputes.
Striking out the action yesterday, Mr Justice Simon said: “The claimant’s connection with this country is exiguous.” Russia, he added, was “the natural forum” for the litigation.
Mr Karpov, a former policeman, was trying to sue over allegations on a campaigning website run by Mr Browder, 49, the chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management. Mr Browder has become a hate figure within the Russian establishment after he persuaded the US Congress last year to adopt the Magnitsky Act. This imposed sanctions on Russians — including Mr Karpov — alleged to have been involved in the $230 million fraud and also with the death of Mr Magnitsky, an accountant and auditor Mr Browder employed to investigate the fraud.
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Blow to libel tourism as court throws out claims of corruption and crime in Eastern Europe because judges believed they had little connection to Britain
The trend for foreigners to have libel disputes settled in Britain could soon be a thing of the past following a landmark High Court decision.
Britain is a popular destination for so-called libel tourism because complainants believe they have more chance of winning a case in our legal system.
But yesterday, two libel cases involving allegations of corruption and crime in Eastern Europe were thrown out by judges because they were deemed to have little connection to Britain.
The decisions were hailed as a victory against libel tourism, which has become an embarrassment to Britain after a number of US states introduced laws enabling their courts to refuse to enforce defamation judgements handed down here.
One of the two cases was brought by a former Moscow policeman against City fund chief William Browder, chief executive of Hermitage Capital Management, who said he had covered up a £150million fraud by causing the torture and murder of a prisoner.
But Mr Justice Simon said that the policeman, Paul Karpov, had no established reputation in Britain and so could not have suffered harm from the allegations. ‘The connection with this country is limited to the presence of some of the parties and it being the place where some of the defamatory material was, and continues to be, published,’ he said.
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Magnitsky, the libel courts, and sanctions
On 16 November 2009 Sergei Magnitsky died in prison in Russia. Shortly before his arrest and imprisonment he had been investigating a substantial tax fraud committed against the Russian Federation by a criminal gang. I shall refer to this tax fraud as the Hermitage Fund fraud.
Beyond this short summary, many of the facts in issue between the parties are unknown or controversial, and are subject to stark divisions of opinion…
So began Mr Justice Simon’s judgment in Pavel Karpov v William Felix Browder & Hermitage Capital Management Limited & others on Monday. And the rest is very much worth reading.
The High Court judge ultimately threw out the libel claim made by Karpov (a Russian ex-cop and Magnitsky List member) against Browder — largely because of “exiguous” grounds to link the case to the UK. Simultaneously, Mr Justice Simon said that there were “inadequate particulars to justify the charge that the claimant was a primary or secondary party to Sergei Magnitsky’s torture and murder”.
The “exiguous” point alone will probably see the case feted as a turning point for ‘libel tourism’, even beyond the Defamation Act which is just coming into force in the UK. Perhaps even for overseas litigants making use of English courts in general. So, here are key bits of the judgment on this stuff:
For these reasons, I am satisfied that the Claimant had no connection with, and had no reputation to protect within, the jurisdiction; and therefore cannot establish a real and substantial tort within the jurisdiction. His reputation exists in Russia and the damage to his reputation (which is presumed as a matter of English law) is in Russia. The contrast with the facts of Berezovsky v. Michaels (see above) is stark…
His connection with this country is exiguous and, although he can point to the continuing publication in this country, there is ‘a degree of artificiality’ about his seeking to protect his reputation in this country. This is an important, but not determinative, consideration on the Defendants’ application to strike out the claim…
But there’s more to it. For one thing, an end to libel tourism or not, the case’s legal bill sounds pretty big: Monday’s ruling refers to the “substantial costs” if Karpov’s claim had reached a full trial.
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