Second Circuit Court in NY Will Hear Arguments on Disqualification of Law Firm Baker Hostetler for Ethical Violations in the Magnitsky Case

June 9, 2016

PRESS RELEASE
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Sec­ond Cir­cuit Court in NY Will Hear Argu­ments on Dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Law Firm Bak­er Hostetler for Eth­i­cal Vio­la­tions in the Mag­nit­sky Case

9 June 2016 – Today, the Unit­ed States Court of Appeals for the Sec­ond Cir­cuit will hear the argu­ment on the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of law firm Bak­er Hostetler because of their dis­loy­al­ty and con­flict of inter­est in the US$230 Mil­lion Russ­ian Fraud case uncov­ered by Sergei Magnitsky.

The con­flict of inter­est stems from Bak­er Hostetler’s cur­rent rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Pre­ve­zon, a Cyprus com­pa­ny owned by a son of Russ­ian offi­cial accused by the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice of laun­der­ing pro­ceeds of the US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Hermitage’s Russ­ian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, in 2008 – 2009, Bak­er Hostetler rep­re­sent­ed Her­mitage Cap­i­tal Man­age­ment, the vic­tims of the US$230 mil­lion fraud, and assist­ed in Hermitage’s efforts to iden­ti­fy ben­e­fi­cia­ries of this fraud and report them to the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice for pros­e­cu­tion and for­fei­ture of assets. 

Sev­er­al years lat­er Her­mitage iden­ti­fied Pre­ve­zon as one of the sus­pect­ed ben­e­fi­cia­ries of the US$230 mil­lion fraud and report­ed it to the US Jus­tice Depart­ment. At that time, Bak­er Hostetler inex­plic­a­bly changed sides and showed up to defend Pre­ve­zon against the US Depart­ment of Jus­tice lawsuit.

Bak­er Hostetler then mount­ed an attack on Her­mitage, the vic­tim of the fraud, false­ly accus­ing Her­mitage of com­plic­i­ty in that same fraud. This vio­la­tion of the duty to its for­mer client led Her­mitage to fil­ing for the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Bak­er Hostetler. The case is now in front of the Court of Appeals for the 2^nd Circuit.

“This con­duct sounds improp­er because it is improp­er,” said Her­mitage in their court filing.

“This Court has rec­og­nized that main­tain­ing the “del­i­cate” bal­ance between the right to “freely cho­sen coun­sel and the need to main­tain the high­est eth­i­cal stan­dards of pro­fes­sion­al respon­si­bil­i­ty … is essen­tial if the public’s trust in the integri­ty of the Bar is to be pre­served.” Even casu­al observers are tak­en aback by Bak­er Hostetler’s con­duct in this case, where it is defend­ing a cur­rent client by false­ly accus­ing a for­mer client of a crime,” said Hermitage’s court filing.

Bak­er Hostetler hired Michael Mukasey, for­mer U.S. Attor­ney Gen­er­al, of coun­sel with Debevoise & Plimp­ton LLP, to defend them­selves against Hermitage’s dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion motion.

Debevoise & Plimp­ton LLP was pre­vi­ous­ly hired by Andrey Pavlov, iden­ti­fied by the US Jus­tice Depart­ment as a mem­ber of the Russ­ian crim­i­nal enter­prise involved in the US$230 fraud scheme, to lob­by the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment to exclude his name from their Mag­nit­sky Sanc­tions List. Despite Debevoise & Plimpton’s inter­ven­tion, the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment includ­ed Pavlov in a 32-per­son Sanc­tions List approved in April 2014.

Sergei Mag­nit­sky, Hermitage’s lawyer who uncov­ered the US$230 mil­lion fraud and tes­ti­fied about the com­plic­i­ty of Russ­ian offi­cials in it, was false­ly arrest­ed, detained for 358 days with­out tri­al, tor­tured and killed in Russ­ian police cus­tody at the age of 37. The events of this case are described in the New-York Times best-sell­er “Red Notice” by William Brow­der and in a series of cam­paign videos on Youtube chan­nel “Russ­ian Untouch­ables.” Recent­ly, thanks to the “Pana­ma Papers”, pro­ceeds of US$230 mil­lion fraud uncov­ered by Sergei Mag­nit­sky, were traced to Swiss account of a com­pa­ny owned by Sergei Roldug­in, a close friend of Russ­ian Pres­i­dent Vladimir Putin.

The court hear­ing on the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of Bak­er Hostetler will begin at 10am, 9 June 2016, at room 1703 of the Thur­good Mar­shall Cour­t­house, 40 Foley Square in New York.

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky
+44 207 440 1777
e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org
www.lawandorderinrussia.org
www.billbrowder.com
twitter.com/Billbrowder

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