Bill Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management,
which was the investment adviser to the largest foreign investment
fund in Russia until 2005, when Bill was denied entry to the
country and declared a “threat to national security” as a result of
his battle against corporate corruption.
Following his expulsion, the Russian authorities raided
his offices, seized Hermitage Fund’s investment companies and used
them to steal $230 million of taxes that the companies had
previously paid. When Browder’s lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky,
investigated the crime, he was arrested by the same officers he
implicated, tortured for 358 days, and killed in custody at the age
of 37 in November 2009.
Since
then, Browder has spent the last 5 years fighting for justice for
Mr. Magnitsky. The Russian government exonerated and even promoted
some of the officials involved so Browder took the case to America,
where his campaigning led to the US Congress adopting the ‘Sergei
Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act’ in 2012, which imposed
visa sanctions and asset freezes on those involved in the
detention, ill-treatment and death of Sergei Magnitsky (as well as
in other human rights abuses). This law was the first time the US
sanctioned Russia in 35 years and became the model for all
subsequent US sanctions against Russia. Browder is currently
working to have similar legislation passed in Magnitsky’s name
across the European Union.