The Global Graft Report: What Happened To Sergey Magnitsky?
March 18, 2010
Hermitage Capital Management was the biggest foreign investor in Russia. Then in 2005, it all went wrong. CEO William Browder was banned from the country on what he says was a pretext. Two years later, 50 police officers from the Moscow Interior Ministry raided Hermitage’s offices and those of its lawyers. The police took corporate documents and seals. Those same instruments were allegedly used in 2008 to fraudulently obtain $230 million that the Hermitage Fund companies had paid in taxes two years earlier.
Also in 2008, one of Hermitage’s lawyers who didn’t leave Russia or go into hiding, Sergei Magnitsky, above, was thrown into jail. He died in custody in November 2009 at age 37. His jailers first said he ruptured his abdominal membrane; then they said it was a heart attack. Officials have refused his family’s requests for an independent autopsy.
DasErste: Rückschau: Russland. Gefängnisreform in Russland — ein langer Weg.
March 15, 2010
Dieser Fall sorgt in den russischen Medien für großen Wirbel: Der 37-jährige Anwalt Sergej Magnitskij stirbt Ende 2009 in der Moskauer Untersuchungshaft. Sie verhafteten ihn wegen Steuerhinterziehung, doch Magnitskij untersuchte millionenschwere Korruption im Beamtenapparat. Vermutlich wollte man ihn zu Aussagen bringen. Sergej Magnitskij starb an Herzversagen, heißt es.
CNBC: From BRIC to BIC: What Happened to Russia?
March 2, 2010
For almost 10 years now, the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) have been the poster children for growth in emerging markets and potentially big profits for investors.
It started back in 2001 when Goldman Sachs came out with its now-famous report talking about the economic potential of those four countries. The firm concluded that they could well be among the world’s biggest economies by the middle of this century.
However, in talking with global investors and in my recent trip to Davos for the World Economic Forum, I found that people are hardly even talking about Russia anymore. They’ve dropped the ”R“ to the point where it’s become the BIC nations.
If they do talk about Russia, it’s often to refer to it as the “sick country.”
The Lawyer: Firestone Duncan founder flees Russia amid alleged government conspiracy
March 2, 2010
The managing partner of a Moscow law firm has fled Russia over fears he is being targeted by the same people he claims are responsible for the death of one of his partners.
Jamison Firestone, co-founder of tax firm Firestone Duncan, has not been back to Russia since Christmas after claiming to have uncovered a criminal conspiracy that bears a resemblance to the events that led to the detention and death in custody of his former partner Sergey Magnitsky.
The Moscow News: American lawyer flees Moscow
February 23, 2010
Jamison Firestone, the colleague of deceased lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, has publicly announced that he will not be returning to his Moscow office as he seeks to battle corruption from London.
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