U.K. Court Throws Out Russian Police Officer’s Libel Suit Against Bill Browder in the Most Egregious Case of Libel Tourism in British History

October 14, 2013

Today, the UK High Court threw out the libel suit filed by unem­ployed Russ­ian ex-police offi­cer Pavel Kar­pov against William Brow­der, Her­mitage Cap­i­tal and Jami­son Fire­stone, as an abuse of the court process. 

“I have con­clud­ed that these pro­ceed­ings should be struck out as abuse of the process and/or under the inher­ent juris­dic­tion,” said pre­sid­ing Judge Simon in the judge­ment read out today in the UK High Court. 

The judge found that there was ‘a degree of arti­fi­cial­i­ty’ about Kar­pov seek­ing to pro­tect his rep­u­ta­tion in the UK. 

The rul­ing also stat­ed that the claim should be thrown out because Kar­pov had lit­tle con­nec­tion to the UK and the UK court would not be a prop­er forum to decide on Karpov’s inclu­sion in the US Mag­nit­sky list. 

The judge said that the impact of any UK judge­ment “would be unlike­ly to assist (let alone achieve) the most impor­tant of the Claimant’s stat­ed objec­tives: his removal from the Mag­nit­sky list.”
Kar­pov is sub­ject to a U.S. asset freeze and U.S. visa ban for his role in the Mag­nit­sky affair under the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act of 2012. 

One of the key issues in the pro­ceed­ings was how an unem­ployed Russ­ian ex-police offi­cer could afford to hire some of the most expen­sive libel spe­cial­ists in the coun­try, includ­ing Geral­dine Proudler, part­ner of the Olswang law firm, Andrew Calde­cott QC, and the pub­lic rela­tions spe­cial­ists from PHA Media. Kar­pov refused to dis­close to the UK court who was financ­ing his legal operations. 

The British court sys­tem has been sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly abused by libel tourists from around the world to exploit the ‘pro-claimant’ bias of the Eng­lish libel law. In this case, an unem­ployed Russ­ian ex-police offi­cer asso­ci­at­ed with a Russ­ian orga­nized crime group respon­si­ble for the theft of $230 mil­lion and the false arrest and killing of 37-year old Sergei Mag­nit­sky, then tried to use the British courts to sti­fle the cam­paign to get jus­tice for Sergei Mag­nit­sky’s tor­ture and mur­der in custody. 

“What is par­tic­u­lar­ly abhor­rent about the Kar­pov libel suit is that rep­utable Eng­lish solic­i­tors and bar­ris­ters would effec­tive­ly become mer­ce­nar­ies to assist cor­rupt Russ­ian offi­cials per­se­cut­ing their vic­tims out­side Rus­sia,” said a Her­mitage Cap­i­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tive. “Thank­ful­ly, the court took a deci­sion which reflects nat­ur­al jus­tice and com­mon sense.” 

The judge not­ed that Mr Brow­der and col­leagues of Sergei Mag­nit­sky have con­duct­ed “a force­ful inter­na­tion­al cam­paign” which cul­mi­nat­ed in the adop­tion of the Sergei Mag­nit­sky Rule of Law Account­abil­i­ty Act in the Unit­ed States last year.
The judge point­ed out the unwill­ing­ness of the Russ­ian author­i­ties to respond to calls to bring to jus­tice its gov­ern­ment offi­cials in the Mag­nit­sky case who have been denounced around the world:

“In North Amer­i­ca and Europe, there have been denun­ci­a­tions of what occurred, with indi­vid­u­als and organs of the Russ­ian Fed­er­a­tion accused of com­plic­i­ty in the… fraud and involve­ment in the mur­der of Sergei Man­git­sky… In Rus­sia, although there seem to be dif­fer­ing views, the offi­cial posi­tion appears to be that what occurred involved a fraud against the state and the death of a Russ­ian cit­i­zen in Rus­sia; and there is no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the exten­sive inter­na­tion­al response to these events.”

Russ­ian ex-Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cial Pavel Kar­pov sued Brow­der, Her­mitage and Fire­stone over the four videos placed on the Russ­ian Untouch­ables web­site expos­ing the crimes com­mit­ted against Sergei Mag­nit­sky, the crimes and abuse Mag­nit­sky had uncov­ered and the “untouch­able” sta­tus of Russ­ian offi­cials who enjoy impuni­ty in Russia. 

In April 2013, Mr Kar­pov, by then no longer for­mal­ly employed by the Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry, was giv­en an audi­ence with the cur­rent Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Kolokolt­sev in which the Min­is­ter thanked Mr Kar­pov and six oth­er Russ­ian Inte­ri­or Min­istry offi­cials sanc­tioned by the U.S. Gov­ern­ment for their role in the Mag­nit­sky case for the “job well done.” (http://rus.ruvr.ru/2013_04_27/Kolokolcev-o-spiske-Magnitskogo-grazhdan-Rossii-jeto-ne-dolzhno-volnovat/).

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