I was taken aback the other day to open up the Moscow Times website and find an glowing opinion article written by Brian Zimbler, a Moscow based lawyer of the firm Dewey & LeBoeuf.  The article, which heaped praise upon Russia as an improving working environment for the legal profession, argued that the Kremlin is "bucking the trend" and taking "serious steps" toward fighting legal nihilsm.  I do not know Zimbler, and I think that we must keep in mind that it is possible that this article was composed before the murder by medical blackmail of Sergei Magnitsky and therefore held no intention in this regard.  It is possible the article is entirely unrelated to the Hermitage events.  But the timing of its publishing - coming only six days after the death - is in poor taste.  Writing ...

Yulia Latynina's column in the Moscow Times points out that Renaissance was also put through the wringer with the same FSB/Interior Ministry scam that Hermitage was ... but chose to stay quiet in order to stay in business.  Always a Faustian bargain.

What's more, Klyuyev had a distant relationship with the security service of the Renaissance Capital investment bank, which, as Browder explained, suffered the same type of raid that the Hermitage subsidiaries suffered.

Renaissance did not lodge a formal complaint for understandable reasons. It was obvious that any group capable of making a tax refund using phony structures had ties that are better left unchallenged. Renaissance understood that crossing the siloviki could be very dangerous.

Browder, however, had nothing to lose. He was faced with an outrageous situation. The firms stolen from him during the raid, regardless of

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The following is a press release being sent around by Hermitage Capital Management with regard to the death last night of Sergei Magnitsky.  The link to the 40-page complaint by Magnitsky to Chief Prosecutor Yuri Chaika detailing the urgent care he required for his medical conditional is very damning.

Death of Hermitage Lawyer in Russian Prison

17 November 2009 - Last night Sergey Magnitskiy, a 37-year old legal adviser and father of two, died in Matrosskaya Tishina pre-trial detention center in Moscow.

Since 2007, Sergey Magnitskiy was defending the Hermitage Fund and HSBC against serious frauds perpetrated with the involvement of Russian officials. Sergey Magnitskiy gave formal testimonies naming officers of the Interior Ministry and their

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I have a trick question for you, especially if you’re interested in emerging markets: Among the four BRIC countries — Brazil, Russia, India and China — which offers the best stock market performance for American investors? Be careful how you answer, because appearances can be deceiving, especially if you focus strictly on one year. Looking at year-to-date results, for example, it might seem that the answer is Russia. From the close of trading at the end of last year through the closing price this past Friday … FXI, the exchange-traded fund (ETF) tracking China’s blue chips, is up 45.87 percent … PIN, representing India’s major stocks, is up 64.16 percent, and … EWZ, the leading Brazil ETF, is up 104.25 percent. But …...

Hillary Clinton has expressed hope that Boeing will win a $3 billion contract to supply planes to Russian airline Rosavia.  Sberbank president German Gref seems to be in the dark about the signing of the Opel deal after thanking reporters for informing him that it may take place this week.  Apparently no industrial partner has been chosen as of yet.  Chinese metals giant Chinalco apparently has its eye on Rusal facilities in Australia, but Deripaska's firm says it has no intention of selling.  The billionaire has suggested breaking RusHydro up into four companies and taking a stake in a large Siberian dam serving his aluminum plants.  Dmitry Medvedev has called upon Alfa Group chief Mikhail Fridman to lead a study of possible ways of seeing the country's economy out of the crisis.  Russian Standard Vodka's billionaire owner, ...

Russian and Chinese companies have signed infrastructure and construction agreements today worth $3.5 billion.  Avtovaz has posted record losses of $659 million for the January-June period, a sour accompaniment to the government's decision to extend the unpopular increased import duties on cars by nine months.  September's sales of 28,109 cars were the lowest seen in the history of the factory, which opened in 1974.  Putin has vouched that the $6.8 billion allocated spending on the APEC summit, to be used improving infrastructure in host city Vladivostok, will not be reduced.  The summit to be held in 2012 will apparently help the area attract $100 billion in investment by 2015.  The head of the State Statistics Service, Vladimir Sokolin, has said in an interview that the Economic Development Ministry plays free and easy with statistics.  Russia's budget deficit this ...

William Browder of Hermitage Capital Management, the victim of a considerable state theft by the Russian government, is upping the ante in his fight to bring attention to the flagrant corruption and abuses of office currently taking place in the Kremlin.  He and his team have released a devastating 10-minute documentary film on YouTube (below) which outlines the risks of investing in Russia, and from what we're hearing, they have been pretty successful in ruffling the feathers all the way up to the top of the government (Putin used to pretend that he had never heard of Browder ... that no longer seems plausible).  Hopefully Browder can find that elusive tipping point for the siloviki and elites which makes injustice more politically onerous than justice.From the Telegraph's write-up of the YouTube campaign:"The Russian ...

Many readers have been following the legal saga of William Browder, Hermitage, and HSBC against Renaissance Capital and certain members of the Russian government alleging a $230 million fraud scheme.  Now we've got our hands on a public filing from the case.  As far as I am aware, this blog is the first to track down this declaration by the lawyer Neil Micklethwaite filed in the Southern District Court of New York supporting a foreign discovery claim on behalf of the plaintiffs.  This is a public legal filing containing allegations which have not yet been ruled on in a court of law, which of course bear no relationship whatsoever to this blog or its authors.  Click here to download

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TODAY: Medvedev meets Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and LAS in Cairo; supports idea of Middle East peace talks before year's end; Lavrov says Russian security idea is not anti-NATO; European report launches stinging attack on Russian justice systemMedvedev has announced that Moscow plans to hold a Middle East peace conference before the end of 2009, an idea supported by Egypt.  In a meeting with the League of Arab States, Medvedev commented that the peace process might result in an independent Palestine with the capital in East Jerusalem.  The BBC comments on the motivation for the trip: 'in terms of influence, Russia lags far behind China and the US - not just in Egypt but right ...

The tricky thing about trying to sue the state in Russia or otherwise defend against their prosecutors is that they tend to immediately raid your legal offices to steal important briefs and other materials - and one should consider themselves lucky when they aren't thrown in jail, exiled, or worse. What an outrageous mockery of a normal business environment the Hermitage/HSBC case is exposing, where the unchecked impunity and greed of Moscow's state officials is going far beyond the easy "rational" targets of energy, mining, media, and civil society supporters. From the Wall Street Journal: Mr. Browder, in a telephone interview from London, said he viewed the search as a response to complaints filed by Hermitage over alleged tax fraud. Three investment vehicles that had formerly been under his control were used to defraud the state of $230 million in taxes, he said. Mr. Browder said he ...