The Daily Telegraph: Law society warning over Russia’s ‘state-sponsored intimidation’
September 11, 2008
By Philip Aldrick
A leading international law society has condemned Russia for the “state-sponsored intimidation” of lawyers representing HSBC and the hedge fund Hermitage Capital Management after they uncovered a large alleged tax fraud.
In comments that will add to growing unease about operating in Russia, the International Bar Association warned of a “deterioration in the rule of law” after officers at the Interior Ministry raided the offices of lawyers working for Hermitage and HSBC and issued summons for them to appear as witnesses on cases in which they are acting.
Mark Ellis, executive director of the IBA, said: “Respect for the role of lawyers and the independence of the judiciary represent an essential feature of the rule of law. When government agents interfere with the work of lawyers, it is not only the legal profession that is threatened, but the overall legal order in the state.”
Hermitage claims to have been under attack by sophisticated criminals with connections in Russia’s Interior Ministry. The Ministry last month raided four law firms in Moscow, including Firestone Duncan of the US.
The New York Times: An Investment Gets Trapped in Kremlin’s Vise
July 24, 2008
William F. Browder was one of the most prominent foreign investors here, a corporate provocateur who brought the tactics of Wall Street shareholder activists to the free-for-all of post-Soviet capitalism. Until, that is, the Kremlin expelled him in 2005.
Mr. Browder then focused on protecting his billions of dollars of stakes in major Kremlin-controlled companies, like Gazprom, and on fighting to return to a land where he had deep and unusual family ties. So when he ran into Dmitri A. Medvedev, the country’s future president, at the World Economic Forum in Davos last year, he saw his chance.
In a brief conversation at a dinner at the Swiss resort, he pressed Mr. Medvedev for help in regaining his Russian visa. Mr. Medvedev, then a top aide to President Vladimir V. Putin, agreed to pass along his request.
The Financial Times: Hermitage in Russia fraud claim
April 4, 2008
By Neil Buckley and Catherine Belton in Moscow
Hermitage Capital, whose manager William Browder has been barred from Russia for more than two years, alleged yesterday that it and HSBC bank had been victims of an elaborate attempt in Russia to defraud them of hundreds of millions of dollars.
A legal complaint to Russian prosecutors sent by lawyers representing Hermitage and HSBC Management Ltd in Guernsey, which is trustee and manager of the Hermitage fund, said the company’s Russian assets had been the target of a “large-scale criminal conspiracy”.
According to the complaint, the attempted fraud began with an investigation by an interior ministry unit into alleged tax evasion by Hermitage last year.
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