Battle for Bank of Moscow

[Casper]

The replacement of senior Bank of Moscow executives was fairly predictable after the high-profile sacking of Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov. That’s the way “oligarchic capitalism” works; key companies were bound to have their executives replaced, at the very least.

The way it was done wasn’t far out of the ordinary either: a criminal investigation combined with an aggressive PR campaign. Any sensible businessman should have read the writing on the wall and given up, unless they wanted to end up behind bars like Mikhail Khodorkovsky or, worse still, Sergei Magnitsky. There’s nothing new about the practice of selling a business at a ridiculous discount to obscure but clearly influential buyers. The best one can hope for is that they are properly registered, unlike Baikal Finans Group (the company that won a huge chunk of the disgraced Yukos), which was registered in “London” – a pub in Tver.


Anyone with even a passing knowledge of the business developments in Russia in the past decade could hardly see the Bank of Moscow case as unique. A revival of corporate raiding is also out of the question because it never died out in the first place. What we are witnessing is rather the continuation and harmonious development of a long-standing government policy.

The only difference is that Moscow eventually lost its bank. This is bound to affect the manageability of the city’s economy in the longer term. It is also unusual that state-controlled VTB, of all banks, should take it over. The two banks’ structures are almost identical, and many of their offices are located next-door to one another, making them natural rivals. This means that the takeover will result in VTB having twin units.

Buying Bank of Moscow, especially at a discount, made sense for VTB, but only as a short-term acquisition. It allowed the buyer to cover its losses with the profits of its newly acquired asset. This dramatic improvement on VTB’s balance sheet will certainly boost VTB’s market capitalization and raise more money from its partial privatization.

Full version of the article was originally published on www.valdaiclub.com

 

[editec]

Russia's corporatocracy isn't quite so refined as ours, yet.

But essantially they're cut from the same bolt of fascist material

 

[waltky]

Seem to recall a PBS Frontline program about this case...

Dead Russian whistleblower set to go on trial
Jan 28,`13 -- Russia is preparing to put lawyer Sergei Magnitsky on trial, even though he is dead, in the latest twist in a case that has severely strained U.S.-Russian relations.

Magnitsky, a lawyer for the Hermitage Capital fund, died in jail in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of colluding in stealing $230 million from the state. He was arrested on suspicion of tax evasion by the same Interior Ministry officials he accused.

His death became an international cause-celebre and the United States passed a law in his name calling for sanctions on Russians accused of involvement in the fraud.

Russia took deep offense and retaliated with measures including banning the adoption of Russian children by Americans. A Moscow court on Monday set preliminary hearings in the posthumous trial for Feb. 18.

Source

See also:

Medvedev: Lawyer's death won't affect business
Jan 26,`13 -- Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says the death of a whistle-blowing lawyer in prison will not adversely affect the country's business climate.

His comments came after the U.S. Congress passed a bill that imposes sanctions and travel restrictions on Russian officials connected to the death of Sergei Magnitsky, a Hermitage Capital lawyer who died in jail of untreated pancreatitis after accusing Russian officials of stealing $230 million from the state.

The RIA Novosti news agency reported Saturday that Medvedev said businessmen are "uninterested" in the issue and that Magnitsky's death was being used by some as "political capital."

Medvedev spoke soon after his return from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, where he promised a more transparent Russian government.

Source

Related:

Magnitsky's mother thanks Obama for legislation
Jan 25,`13 -- The mother of a whistle-blowing Russian lawyer who died in prison thanked President Barack Obama Friday for a U.S. law targeting Russian officials deemed to be human rights violators involved in her son's death.

Sergei Magnitsky died in jail of untreated pancreatitis in 2009 after accusing Russian officials of stealing $230 million from the state. The case has angered both Russian activists and the West, and in December the U.S. Congress passed legislation in Magnitsky's name, calling for sanctions against officials considered to be connected with human rights abuses. Natalya Magnitskaya said she is grateful to Obama for facilitating the adoption of the bill. "I would probably thank him after all for adopting this law, it will somehow keep my son's memory," she said. "Of course, it is sad that he became well-known on such an occasion."

Magnitsky, a lawyer for the Hermitage Capital fund, was arrested in 2008 on suspicion of tax evasion by the same Interior Ministry officials he accused of using false tax documents to steal the $230 million. An investigation by Russia's presidential council on human rights concluded he was severely beaten and denied medical treatment. Prison doctor Dmitry Kratov, the only person to face trial in the case, was acquitted in late December.

The Magnitsky bill provoked retaliation from Moscow, including a measure barring Americans from adopting Russian children that President Vladimir Putin signed on Friday. Magnitskaya criticized the Russian ban, saying it will not help Russian orphans. "Turns out that it took them Sergei's death to start caring about Russian orphans," she said. The bill is part of Russia's increasingly confrontational stance with the West and has angered some Russians who argue it victimizes children to make a political point.

Source

 

[mememe]

Magnitsky, an accountant, was making his living in “gray economy” of the 90-s. He was working for Bill Brauder who sat in high positions in few transnational corporations; among them – Solomon Brothers. Brauder was working in partnership with even bigger fish – Safra, -- a co-owner of the Republic National Bank of New York.

In 1996 Brauder and Safra created an investment fund Hermitage Capital Management with Magnitsky as a high ranking employee.

In the same year Yeltsun government controlled by Chubais issued Russian Treasury bonds – a pyramid scheme. Naive in the workings of capitalist realities Russians went for it.
When the pyramid started to look shaky Chubais took out $4.8 billion IMF credit for “stabilisation purposes”. The following morning the pyramid collapsed. Tens of millions of Russian people lost their livelihoods.

October of 1999 Italian newspaper “Republica”: “$4.8 billion were transferred from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York into the account 608550800 of the Republic National Bank of New York. Before the default on July 27 this account had $400 million; during the default the account grew to $21.5 billion; and on the 24 of August it had only $300 million. It is not known what happened to the rest of the money including $4.8 billion IMF credit”.

What is known, is that instead of transferring IMF credit to Russia, Safra’s bank transferred the money to few banks outside of Russia through the Swiss Creditanstalt Bankverein... Btw., Berezovsky and Abramovich were also involved in this scheme – the grandest financial scheme of the century!

FBI started an investigation. Safra panicked, began to cooperate, and was fried in his Monaco home.

After Safra’s death, Brauder launched the second stage of his “investment” scheme: he began buying Russian assets the price of which plummeted below the waterline.

Magnitsky as an accountant was working on this scheme.
During the second phase of his financial operation Brauder came into conflict with other transnational corporations as well as local oligarchs-in-making who also were interested in getting their hands on Russia’s assets. As a result, Brauder had to move out of Russia leaving Magnitsky to clean up the books. He was arrested, started cooperating with the investigation and was murdered...

In whose interests were the deaths of both Safra and Magnitsky?

Until now UK refused to cooperate with Russia on the investigation of Bill Brauder...

 

[waltky]

meme...

... got a link for any of that info?...

... or is it just Russkie disinformation propaganda?

 

[mememe]

meme...

... got a link for any of that info?...

... or is it just Russkie disinformation propaganda?

The first mistake in Western account concerning Magnitski: Western media insist on calling him a "lawyer"; he was an accountant. If media can't get that simple fact right...

Information I put together came from many sources and few investigations by Russian public figures (1990-s for Russia were too disastrous for people to simply forget them; Russians are trying to get to the bottom of it). If you know Russian, I can give you a link...

Otherwise, do you research. the key points I provided, verify them; after all, FBI did have investigation into Safra activities. Then, there is Italian paper I named; it ran series of articles on the disappearance of the money. Look up the connection of the Swiss Creditanstalt Bankverein and the Republic National Bank of New York. And if you feel up for it, do a research on Chubais economic/financial reforms, Russian Treasury bonds of the 90-s and the disaster of a default...

 

[mememe]

Browder tries to get out of taking part in court hearing.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - tell ol' Putin to blow it out his ear...

Russia Warns US Not to Publish List of Alleged Human Rights Abusers
April 12, 2013 - Moscow has warned Washington against publishing a list of Russian officials who face sanctions for alleged human rights abuses.

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said on Friday that publication of the list would severely strain relations. The list, which was expected to be released Friday, is authorized by the Magnitsky Act, a law passed by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Barack Obama last December. Sergei Magnitsky was a Russian lawyer who was arrested after exposing a state embezzlement scheme. He died in prison in 2009 after being beaten and denied medical treatment.

The so-called "Magnitsky list" includes not only Russian officials involved in his case, but those who have participated in the Kremlin's crackdown on Russians' political rights. In response to the Magnitsky Act, Russia's parliament passed two bills that President Vladimir Putin signed into law. One bars Americans from adopting Russian children, while the other lists sanctions to be taken again those who have violated the human rights of Russian citizens.

In addition, Russia has already denied visas to U.S. officials it says violated human rights more broadly, including the rights of prisoners held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. On Monday, Vyacheslav Nikonov, a first deputy chairman of the State Duma's Foreign Affairs Committee, told VOA's Russian service that the same number of people on the Magnitsky list will be put on the so-called "Guantanamo list."

Source

See also:

US publishes Magnitsky list of sanctioned Russians
12 April 2013 - The United States has published a list of mainly Russian officials banned from entering the country because of alleged human rights abuses.

Russia had earlier warned against making the 18 names public, warning it could severely damage relations. The US imposed the sanctions after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in jail in 2009 in disputed circumstances. The list includes tax officials and police officers who jailed Magnitsky after he accused them of corruption. But senior officials from President Vladimir Putin's entourage who had been expected to be included were left off, including Russia's top police official Alexander Bastrykin. Alexei Pushkov, a senior Russian lawmaker, said the pared down list suggested that "the US presidential administration decided not to take the path of aggravating a political crisis with Moscow", according to the Interfax news agency.

Some 250 names had originally been put forward by US politicians. The final list includes people from Russia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, 16 of them linked to the Magnitsky case. The others are officials deemed to have participated in recent Kremlin moves to restrict Russians' political rights. Mr Magnitsky was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after accusing Russian police officials of stealing US $230m (£150m) from the state through fraudulent tax rebates. His family and rights groups say he was badly beaten and denied medical treatment in custody. The Magnitsky Act passed by Washington in 2012 blacklists Russian officials accused of involvement in his death. The names on the list have up to now been kept secret.

Counter measures

In response, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a Russian law barring Americans from adopting Russian orphans. More recently the Russian foreign ministry has drawn up its own blacklist of US officials who are alleged to have committed human rights violations. Sources say that the counter-measures will be "symmetrical" and should be in place by Saturday. "The appearance of any lists will doubtless have a very negative effect on bilateral Russian-American relations," President Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. Those affected by the American measures have had their US accounts frozen and have been added to a list of people who will be denied US entry visas. Some European nations are taking similar measures.

Mr Peskov said that despite Russia's unhappiness over the measures, co-operation between the two sides would continue, because there were "still numerous prospects for further development". Correspondents say that the argument threatens to cast a shadow over a visit to Russia by President Obama's National Security adviser Tom Donilon, who is to hold high-level talks in Moscow on Monday. The posthumous trial of Mr Magnitsky - who died aged 37 in pre-trial detention after developing pancreatitis - opened in Moscow in March but was adjourned shortly afterwards. Legal experts say they are unaware of any precedents for the trial of a dead man in Russian history.

BBC News - US publishes Magnitsky list of sanctioned Russians

 

[blackcherry]

Magnitsky, an accountant, was making his living in “gray economy” of the 90-s. He was working for Bill Brauder who sat in high positions in few transnational corporations; among them – Solomon Brothers. Brauder was working in partnership with even bigger fish – Safra, -- a co-owner of the Republic National Bank of New York.

In 1996 Brauder and Safra created an investment fund Hermitage Capital Management with Magnitsky as a high ranking employee.

In the same year Yeltsun government controlled by Chubais issued Russian Treasury bonds – a pyramid scheme. Naive in the workings of capitalist realities Russians went for it.
When the pyramid started to look shaky Chubais took out $4.8 billion IMF credit for “stabilisation purposes”. The following morning the pyramid collapsed. Tens of millions of Russian people lost their livelihoods.

October of 1999 Italian newspaper “Republica”: “$4.8 billion were transferred from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York into the account 608550800 of the Republic National Bank of New York. Before the default on July 27 this account had $400 million; during the default the account grew to $21.5 billion; and on the 24 of August it had only $300 million. It is not known what happened to the rest of the money including $4.8 billion IMF credit”.

What is known, is that instead of transferring IMF credit to Russia, Safra’s bank transferred the money to few banks outside of Russia through the Swiss Creditanstalt Bankverein... Btw., Berezovsky and Abramovich were also involved in this scheme – the grandest financial scheme of the century!

FBI started an investigation. Safra panicked, began to cooperate, and was fried in his Monaco home.

After Safra’s death, Brauder launched the second stage of his “investment” scheme: he began buying Russian assets the price of which plummeted below the waterline.

Magnitsky as an accountant was working on this scheme.
During the second phase of his financial operation Brauder came into conflict with other transnational corporations as well as local oligarchs-in-making who also were interested in getting their hands on Russia’s assets. As a result, Brauder had to move out of Russia leaving Magnitsky to clean up the books. He was arrested, started cooperating with the investigation and was murdered...

In whose interests were the deaths of both Safra and Magnitsky?

Until now UK refused to cooperate with Russia on the investigation of Bill Brauder...

I have never read such an inane FSB rant for a long time .
Not one fact of relevance and a series of stupid lies .
I think you had better get your bosses to issue you with a slightly better thought out defence .
The Kremlin was dipping its sticky hands into the honey jar and they were caught thieving.
Our saying is , "they are banged to rights " .
The fact that the Kremlin ( Putin the psycho Dwarf) now wants to prosecute a dead man tells you a great deal about this nasty piece of FSB work and the type of filthy world they live in .

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Hrmph - buncha pansies - who needs `em...

Russia responds in kind to US Magnitsky list
13 April 2013 - Russia has published a list of 18 US officials barred from the country, in response to a similar US list published by the US Treasury on Friday.

A statement described the US move as a severe blow to relations, and said blackmail could not be ignored. The US published its list under an act named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky who died in jail in 2009 in disputed circumstances. It includes officials who jailed him after he accused them of corruption. But senior officials from President Vladimir Putin's entourage who had been expected to be included were left off, including Russia's top police official Alexander Bastrykin.

Russia's list, announced by the foreign ministry, includes two former Bush administration officials who are said to have advocated harsh interrogation techniques and two former commanders of the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay. David Addington, chief of staff to former Vice-President Dick Cheney is one of them.

The row over Magnitsky threatens to cast a shadow over US-Russia relations

The other 14 were named as having violated the rights of Russian citizens abroad. "The war of lists is not our choice, but we cannot ignore outright blackmail," a statement from the Russian ministry said. "It's time for Washington politicians to finally understand that there are no prospects in building relations with a country like Russia with the spirit of mentoring and undisguised dictating."

Itar-Tass news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying there was also a secret section to the list with more names, as the US list had. A Russian law barring Americans from adopting Russian orphans, regarded as a response to the US law, has already been passed.

Visit overshadowed

See also:

Russia bans 18 Americans after similar US move
Apr 13,`13 -- Russia on Saturday banned 18 Americans from entering the country in response to Washington imposing sanctions on 18 Russians for alleged human rights violations.

The list released by the Foreign Ministry includes John Yoo, a former U.S. Justice Department official who wrote legal memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques; David Addington, the chief of staff for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney; and two former commanders of the Guantanamo Bay detention center: retired Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller and Adm. Jeffrey Harbeson. The move came a day after the U.S. announced its sanctions under the Magnitsky Law, named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after accusing Russian police officials of stealing $230 million in tax rebates. He died in prison the next year, allegedly after being beaten and denied medical treatment.

The U.S. State Department released a statement Saturday in response to Russia's latest decision. "As we've said many times before, the right response by Russia to the international outcry over Sergey Magnitsky's death would be to conduct a proper investigation and hold those responsible for his death accountable, rather than engage in tit-for-tat retaliation," according to the statement. Neither Washington nor Moscow put high-ranking or politically prominent figures on their lists, perhaps aiming to limit the effect on U.S.-Russian relations that have deteriorated, despite President Barack Obama's initiative to "reset" relations with Moscow.

The Magnitsky law infuriated Russian authorities, and parliament quickly passed a retaliatory measure than banned Americans from adopting Russian children. Russia also has banned U.S. funding for any non-governmental organization deemed to be engaging in politics. "I think that both sides showed a definite restraint because in Washington and in Moscow there were hotheads demanding to inflate the list to an unthinkable size," parliament member Vyacheslav Nikonov, who focuses on foreign affairs, was quoted as saying by the news agency Interfax.

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying there also is a "closed part" of the list of banned Americans and that the U.S. knows of its existence. The U.S. law in turn allows the administration to compile a separate classified list of Russian officials subject to visa bans. The public U.S. list includes Artem Kuznetsov and Pavel Karpov, two Russian Interior Ministry officers who put Magnitsky behind bars after he accused them of stealing $230 million from the state. Two tax officials the lawyer accused of approving the fraudulent tax refunds, and several other Interior Ministry officials accused of persecuting Magnitsky, also were on the list. Absent were senior officials from Russian President Vladimir Putin's entourage whom some human rights advocates had hoped to see sanctioned.

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