Bill Browder

News Release & Judgment in Sergey Magnitsky, deceased, an auditor charged with tax evasion regarding USA-born, London-based hedge fund principal Bill Browder; Magnitsky's widow, Nataliya Zharikova, and his mother, Natalia Magnitskiya v. The Government of Russia at the European Court of Human Rights. The Court ordered Russia to pay €34,000 in damages to Magnitsky's wife and mother for Magnitsky's "ill-treatment" in prison. The Court appeared to reject Browder's claim that Magnitsky was detained and killed for blowing the whistle on alleged fraud by Russian officials, determining that "the enquiry into alleged tax evasion which had led to Mr Magnitskiy's arrest had begun long before he had complained of fraud by officials. The decision to arrest him had only been made after investigators had learned that he had previously applied for a UK visa, had booked tickets to Kyiv, and had not been residing at his registered address. Furthermore, the evidence against him, including witness testimony, had been enough to satisfy an objective observer that he might have committed the offence in question. The list of reasons given by the domestic court to justify his subsequent detention had been specific and sufficiently detailed. The Court thus rejected the applicants' complaint about Mr Magnitskiy's arrest and subsequent detention as being manifestly ill-founded."

London-based financier Bill Browder has positioned himself as an anti-corruption crusader who will stop at nothing to avenge the death of his former tax accountant, Sergei Magnitsky, who died in a Russian prison in 2009. Browder claims Magnitsky was tortured and murdered by corrupt Russian prison guards because he blew the whistle on a $230 million tax fraud committed against the state using companies that were stolen from Browder. He has been the driving force behind new laws in the USA and other countries that are aimed at Russians and others who are involved in corrupt activity. Critics of Browder, however, have accused him of being a fantasist, pointing out what they claim are inconsistencies and inaccuracies in his Magnitsky story, his tax fraud conviction in Russia, and his pre-Magnitsky history of business dealings they claim are questionable. In this session, we will attempt to determine fact vs. fiction.

  Speakers Andrei Nekrasov, Film & TV Director & Writer, Independent Jamison Firestone, Managing Partner, Firestone Duncan (Russia & UK) Lucy Komisar, Investigative Journalist