Posts Tagged ‘neil buckley’
Browder asks court to throw out Magnitsky libel lawsuit
Bill Browder, the UK-based fund manager behind the US Magnitsky Act, is asking the High Court to throw out an extraordinary libel lawsuit brought against him by a Russian he accused of being involved in Russia’s biggest tax fraud.
Mr Browder has become a hate figure for the Russian leadership after lobbying Congress to adopt the Magnitsky law last year. The law imposed sanctions on Russians allegedly involved in the $230m fraud and the death in custody of Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer Mr Browder employed to investigate it.
The defamation case has been brought by Russian-based Pavel Karpov, a former policeman who is suing over allegations on a campaigning website run by Mr Browder.
Magnitsky died in a Russian jail four years ago but he was convicted of tax evasion this month in a posthumous Russian trial that drew widespread criticism in the west.
Mr Browder’s campaign has accused Mr Karpov of being involved both in the fraud and of being among police who arranged for Magnitsky’s arrest and torture in jail. Mr Karpov’s libel writ says those claims are false.
The case is bound to reignite concerns around libel tourism and that London’s courts are being used by the rich and powerful who have tenuous links with the UK but want to exploit its claimant-friendly rules.
Mr Browder alleges the Russian government is ultimately behind the case and is using it to attempt to force him to take down videos on his website.
Antony White QC, Mr Browder’s barrister, claims in court papers that Mr Karpov “does not have the means to pay for this litigation himself” and is relying on an unidentified friend.
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Council of Europe slams Russia over ‘appalling’ Magnitsky case
Russia has been accused of a “high-level cover-up” of a “gigantic robbery” from the state exposed by Sergei Magnitsky, the anti-corruption lawyer beaten to death in jail, in a scathing report for Europe’s top human rights body.
The draft report says the fact no one has been punished for Magnitsky’s death or for the $230m theft of public funds he was investigating is “appalling”. It labels the Russian government’s response as “belated, sluggish and contradictory”.
It also says explanations offered by Moscow that were used to exonerate officials for their role in the theft, and then posthumously to blame Magnitsky himself for the fraud, were “unconvincing and doubtful”.
The 41-page report is the result of a six-month investigation by Andreas Gross, a Swiss member of the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe, responsible for enforcing the European Convention on Human Rights.
The report will step up the diplomatic pressure on Moscow over the case. It may also prompt European countries to examine similar steps to the US Magnitsky Act, which imposed visa bans and froze assets of 60 Russians allegedly linked to the crimes – though the report says such measures should be a “last resort”.
Russia responded furiously to the Magnitsky Act, banning US citizens from adopting Russian children and drawing up a tit-for-tat blacklist of US officials.
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Moscow uses Irish adoption threat to block use of Magnitsky list
Russia has threatened to block Irish adoptions of Russian children if the Dublin parliament adopts a US-style “Magnitsky List” imposing sanctions on Russian officials.
Moscow barred US citizens from adopting Russians in retaliation for the US Congress passing the Magnitsky Act last December, marking a chill in transatlantic relations. The act imposed visa bans and asset freezes on officials allegedly connected with the 2009 death in jail of the anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.
The warning to Ireland, in a letter from Russia’s ambassador to the parliament’s foreign affairs and trade committee, is the first time Moscow has threatened similar action against another country.
It appears designed to head off attempts to persuade other EU states to adopt Magnitsky measures. Ireland holds the EU presidency, and a draft motion before the committee last month called on the government to use that role “to impose EU-wide visa sanctions”.
The March 11 letter from Maxim Peshkov, a career diplomat, warns that steps by Ireland towards adopting such sanctions “can have negative influence on the negotiations on the Adoption Agreement between Russia and Ireland being proceeded”.
The Russian embassy in Dublin on Thursday declined to connect calls to Mr Peshkov, saying the embassy was “closed for technical reasons”.
Bill Browder, the formerly Russian-based fund manager who employed Magnitsky and has led the campaign to bring those linked to his death to justice, said the letter was an “attack on Irish democracy”.
“Even though Ireland is a small country, the fact that they are [EU] president means they have a hugely disproportionate voice, for a fixed period,” he said. “The Irish parliamentarians have interpreted this as a threat to their adoptions.”
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US moves closer to Russia trade bill
The US Congress is set to take a big step towards approving normal trade relations with Russia, brushing off geopolitical tensions to deliver a victory for large US exporters such as Caterpillar and General Electric.
The Ways and Means committee of the House of Representatives is expected to vote on a bill, probably on Thursday, that would allow US companies to reap the benefits from Russia’s looming accession to the World Trade Organisation. The so-called Magnitsky bill – which seeks to punish Russian officials for human rights abuses – will be attached to the legislation.
With both Republican and Democratic leaders on the panel endorsing the package, it should pass comfortably. This would bolster the chances of it being enacted before the August congressional recess – as its supporters are hoping for – though it may not happen until September or later in the year.
“The prospects have improved dramatically”, said Ron Pollett, chief executive of GE Russia, who was in Washington last week to lobby for the bill. “It’s a question of when, not if.”
The bill would unwind the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a Cold War relic that barred trade with the Soviet Union for restricting Jewish emigration. Its provisions have routinely been waived, but its presence has continued to sour US economic relations with Russia.
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West needs to engage with ordinary Russians
Vladimir Putin, after a campaign dripping with anti-western vitriol, has won a presidential election that monitors and Russia’s newly-emboldened opposition say was deeply flawed. How should the west respond?
US and European Union leaders are already being criticised – including by Russian pro-democracy groups – for tepid criticism of the alleged voting fraud. One European parliamentarian has said there should be “no business as usual” with Mr Putin’s regime.
But many in Russian civil society and the intelligentsia say it is crucial for the west not to isolate Russia at the very moment that its middle-class political consciousness is flowering.
Doing so could provide cover for a Kremlin clampdown on the nascent opposition. It would make it harder, too, to counter official propaganda that the financial crisis and eurozone problems prove western-style market democracy is not a shining model for Russia.
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