UK Magnitsky Asset Freezing Legislation Passed the Second Reading in the House of Lords

March 16, 2017

PRESS RELEASE
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UK Mag­nit­sky Asset Freez­ing Leg­is­la­tion Passed the Sec­ond Read­ing in the House of Lords 

16 March 2017 – The UK House of Lords approved in its sec­ond read­ing the Mag­nit­sky asset freez­ing leg­is­la­tion, which will allow the British gov­ern­ment to freeze the assets of human rights abusers. The bill is now slat­ed for a line-by-line exam­i­na­tion in the House of Lords on 28 March 2017.

“I wel­come the fact that we have tak­en action, send­ing a clear state­ment that we will not allow human rights abusers to laun­der their crim­i­nal assets through the UK,” said Baroness Williams of Traf­ford, Min­is­ter of State at the Home Office, intro­duc­ing the pro­posed Mag­nit­sky legislation.

Under this new leg­is­la­tion, assets of those involved in gross human rights vio­la­tions abroad will be sub­ject to civ­il recov­ery by the British gov­ern­ment. The ini­tia­tive was inspired by the case of Sergei Magnitsky:

“We have amend­ed the Bill … to allow for the civ­il recov­ery of any pro­ceeds of gross human rights abuse over­seas. This amend­ment was prompt­ed by the hor­rif­ic treat­ment of Sergei Mag­nit­sky, a Russ­ian tax lawyer. …Magnitsky’s treat­ment was tru­ly shock­ing, and it is only one exam­ple of the many atro­cious human rights vio­la­tions com­mit­ted glob­al­ly every year,” said Baroness Williams of Trafford.

Baroness Stern said:

“The vic­tims of grand cor­rup­tion are too many to count… The Mag­nit­sky amend­ment rep­re­sents a huge step for­ward and I was very glad to hear the Min­is­ter talk about human rights abus­es around the world in this con­nec­tion. Some argue that grand cor­rup­tion should be clas­si­fied as a human rights abuse; I find that argu­ment convincing.”

Lord Rook­er said:

“I salute Mr Brow­der for his ded­i­ca­tion and per­se­ver­ance in try­ing to bring those guilty of the mur­der of his lawyer to jus­tice… Chas­ing them legal­ly around the world, and now in this Bill, is a must.”

Baroness Hamwee said:

“Cor­rup­tion and the infringe­ment of human rights go hand in hand. I wel­come the Mag­nit­sky amendment.”

In clos­ing the debate, Baroness Williams of Traf­ford talked about the gov­ern­ment ensur­ing that “the Mag­nit­sky pow­er will be used” in cas­es where there is evi­dence “to sat­is­fy a court on the bal­ance of prob­a­bil­i­ties that prop­er­ty in the UK is the pro­ceeds of gross human rights abus­es or vio­la­tions overseas.”

The events of the Mag­nit­sky case are described in the inter­na­tion­al best-sell­er “Red Notice” by William Brow­der and in a series of Mag­nit­sky jus­tice cam­paign videos on Youtubechan­nel “Russ­ian Untouchables.”

 

For more infor­ma­tion, please contact:

Jus­tice for Sergei Magnitsky

+44 207 440 1777

e‑mail: info@lawandorderinrussia.org

www.lawandorderinrussia.org

billbrowder.com

twitter.com/Billbrowder

 

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