Kremlin Rules - An Investment in Russia Gets Trapped in Kremlin’s Vise - Series - NYTimes.com: "Mr. Browder does not know exactly why the Kremlin turned against him. But the Kremlin was consolidating control over prized companies like Gazprom and appeared to be chafing at criticism from outside shareholders.
Once things went bad, Mr. Browder had no recourse. The police confiscated vital documents from his lawyer’s office in Moscow. He discovered that his holding companies had been stolen from him and re-registered in the name of a convicted murderer in a provincial city.
Whoever was behind the scheme took over much of Mr. Browder’s corporate structure in Russia, but failed to get at his investors’ money. Even so, in recent weeks, Mr. Browder said he had learned that his former holding companies had been used to embezzle $230 million from the Russian treasury."
In particular I like the fact that the Russian government used a Western companies' holding documents to embezzle hundreds of millions of dollars from... the Russian government. Back in the spring of 2007, Grant Felgenhauer, Investment Director and General Counsel at Hermitage, gave an excellent lecture here at Stetson on Russian business prospects and the legal environment. He was guardedly optimistic at the time...
No comments:
Post a Comment