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Fast Money & Foreign Objects
9 December 2013 Last updated at 20:50 ET
William Browder: The man behind the Magnitsky List
By Tara McKelvey BBC News Magazine
William Browder is trying to get justice for his lawyer
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William Browder is trying to hold to account Russians who he claims are responsible for the death of his lawyer, and US officials have drawn up a blacklist of those said to have been involved in the case. This week, the BBC has learned, new names are expected to appear on the list.
Browder got the phone call in the early morning of 17 November 2009. It was an unseasonably warm day in London, and he was still in bed.
A colleague told him the news. Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who had uncovered what he said was a $230m (£140m) tax refund fraud in Moscow and was being held in a detention centre, was dead.
Years later Browder still remembers how he felt when he heard. "It was like a knife in the heart," he said.
Browder got out of bed and raced to the offices of his hedge fund company, Hermitage Capital, in the Golden Square area of London. He sent out a press statement pledging an independent investigation into Magnitsky's death.
On that day and in the years that followed, Browder approached the case in the way he was trained at Stanford business school - methodically. He analysed documents and focused on the money.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The idea of making money no longer drives me, but the idea of changing the world does”
William Browder
Browder pushed people in Washington to support a bill, the Magnitsky Act, that was signed into law in December 2012. It featured a list of 18 individuals, including three from Russia's interior ministry. Magnitsky's List, as it is known, includes people "who signed the documents", claimed Browder, that led to the lawyer's imprisonment and death.
The US government will deny visas to these individuals, if they request one, as well as freeze assets in the US.
Browder's pursuit of justice is both idealistic and single-minded. His critics say he has tried to shape US foreign policy for his own narrow goals and has lost sight of the bigger picture.
According to a Nation article, he and other supporters of the Magnitsky Act seem "motivated more by their hostility to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin rather than by any principled concern for democracy and human rights".
Sergei Magnitsky died in a Russian prison in 2009
Diplomats say that his efforts, however noble, are a sore spot in US-Russia relations. Things may become even more tense this week.
State and treasury department officials are required to submit a report about the Magnitsky Act to Congress by 14 December. A senior Senate staffer who has close knowledge of the issue told the BBC that new names are expected to appear this week on Magnitsky's List.
For Browder the bill is part of a larger plan.
Even in the world of human rights, an arena that has more than its share of determined individuals, he stands out. "The idea of making money no longer drives me," he said recently, "but the idea of changing the world does."
As he spoke, he was having breakfast in a Washington hotel. The sun, glinting off the Potomac River, filled the room. Browder, 49, has hazel eyes, and he looked tanned and fit.
He describes himself as "this weird mix of human-rights activist and hedge-fund manager". He also has Dostoevskyean intensity.
"The illness of Russian evil has plagued me," he said, describing how Magnitsky's death has affected him.
"It's very personal," he said. "It wasn't like he was on a business trip and he died. He was selected to be tortured because he worked for me."
When he talked about Putin, he slammed a spoon on a placemat on the table. Russian authorities have tried unsuccessfully to put him on Interpol's search list. He brushed off the dangers of taking on the Russian president.
In July, Browder told the BBC Magnitsky's conviction was "a truly historic and shameful moment for Russia"
"I'd rather die with a clean soul than live a life of compromise and fear," he said.
He said that he wants to make sure law enforcement officials track every dollar that the Russians made off the alleged scam - and seize their assets, regardless of where the money is.
"That way they don't get to keep it," he said. So far he has managed to ferret out $135m of the $230m that he believes was stolen.
A senior state department official said names would be added - but could not confirm which individuals would appear on the list.
Officials in Washington, as well as attorneys in New York, have been studying the Magnitsky Act over the past several months. It has also been cited in court documents.
In September, for example, the US attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, filed a civil forfeiture complaint against a real estate corporation, Prevezon, that owns property in New York.
Obama signed the Magnitsky Act in 2012 - and controversy over the law continues
Bharara said individuals received money through the scam that Magnitsky claimed to have exposed.
"While New York is a world financial capital," said Bharara, "it is not a safe haven for criminals seeking to hide their loot."
Denis Katsyv is the owner of Prevezon, according to the court documents, and Aleksandr Litvak is his business partner. Timofei Krit is described as a director.
"My companies and I do not stand accused by any law enforcement agency of engaging in any action to defraud the Russian Treasury," said Katsyv said in a statement provided by his American lawyer Mark Cymrot.
"My companies and I do not stand accused by any law enforcement agency of being involved, directly or indirectly, in the death of Sergei Magnitsky."
Efforts to reach Krit and Litvak through lawyers were not successful.
Regardless of what the report on the Magnitsky Act says, one thing is clear. Over the past four years Browder has made an extraordinary investment in the promotion of human rights in Russia.
His efforts raise the question - to what extent can one guy, armed with lots of fancy friends and a record as an investor, change the Russian way of doing business?
"You should ask that question to Khodorkovsky," said Masha Gessen, a journalist and the author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.
She was referring to the former head of Yukos oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been held in a penal colony for more than a decade.
As Gessen and other activists know, it takes more than money and street smarts to change things in Moscow. One needs luck - and to be in the right place at the right time.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The illness of Russian evil has plagued me”
William Browder
Browder was living in London when Russian officials began to crack down on his company. He is acutely aware of the fact that it was not he, but one of his lawyers, who paid the price for his efforts at institutional reform.
He is a British citizen - he gave up his US passport years ago. He still dresses like an American, though, and sometimes talks like one.
He wears loafers and loose-fitting jeans, not tight like a European. Over breakfast in Washington he spoke about the ability of officials to make rational decisions.
Putin said Magnitsky died of heart failure and no charges should be filed
He said he believed government officials would follow "simple logic" when putting together their report on the Magnitsky Act.
It is a hopeful view. The real story of the bill, like most things in Washington, was hardly linear. To a certain extent the bill was passed because of his single-minded focus on the goal. The success also depended on politics and timing, and little of it was rational.
At breakfast he poured milk over a bowl of homemade granola - but not much milk, just a drizzle. While he can sound like an American, he acts like an ascetic who is devoted to justice.
It is a break from the stuff one hears in Washington, but also daunting. One is reminded that one's own life is ordinary, not to mention filled with compromises.
He grew up on the south side of Chicago. His grandfather, Earl, was the general secretary of the American Communist Party from 1932-45. His father, Felix, was born in Moscow and later became chairman of the mathematics department at the University of Chicago.
William Browder: The man behind the Magnitsky List
By Tara McKelvey BBC News Magazine
Continue reading the main story
Related Stories
William Browder is trying to hold to account Russians who he claims are responsible for the death of his lawyer, and US officials have drawn up a blacklist of those said to have been involved in the case. This week, the BBC has learned, new names are expected to appear on the list.
Browder got the phone call in the early morning of 17 November 2009. It was an unseasonably warm day in London, and he was still in bed.
A colleague told him the news. Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who had uncovered what he said was a $230m (£140m) tax refund fraud in Moscow and was being held in a detention centre, was dead.
Years later Browder still remembers how he felt when he heard. "It was like a knife in the heart," he said.
Browder got out of bed and raced to the offices of his hedge fund company, Hermitage Capital, in the Golden Square area of London. He sent out a press statement pledging an independent investigation into Magnitsky's death.
On that day and in the years that followed, Browder approached the case in the way he was trained at Stanford business school - methodically. He analysed documents and focused on the money.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The idea of making money no longer drives me, but the idea of changing the world does”
William Browder
Browder pushed people in Washington to support a bill, the Magnitsky Act, that was signed into law in December 2012. It featured a list of 18 individuals, including three from Russia's interior ministry. Magnitsky's List, as it is known, includes people "who signed the documents", claimed Browder, that led to the lawyer's imprisonment and death.
The US government will deny visas to these individuals, if they request one, as well as freeze assets in the US.
Browder's pursuit of justice is both idealistic and single-minded. His critics say he has tried to shape US foreign policy for his own narrow goals and has lost sight of the bigger picture.
According to a Nation article, he and other supporters of the Magnitsky Act seem "motivated more by their hostility to the government of Russian President Vladimir Putin rather than by any principled concern for democracy and human rights".
Diplomats say that his efforts, however noble, are a sore spot in US-Russia relations. Things may become even more tense this week.
State and treasury department officials are required to submit a report about the Magnitsky Act to Congress by 14 December. A senior Senate staffer who has close knowledge of the issue told the BBC that new names are expected to appear this week on Magnitsky's List.
For Browder the bill is part of a larger plan.
Even in the world of human rights, an arena that has more than its share of determined individuals, he stands out. "The idea of making money no longer drives me," he said recently, "but the idea of changing the world does."
As he spoke, he was having breakfast in a Washington hotel. The sun, glinting off the Potomac River, filled the room. Browder, 49, has hazel eyes, and he looked tanned and fit.
He describes himself as "this weird mix of human-rights activist and hedge-fund manager". He also has Dostoevskyean intensity.
"The illness of Russian evil has plagued me," he said, describing how Magnitsky's death has affected him.
"It's very personal," he said. "It wasn't like he was on a business trip and he died. He was selected to be tortured because he worked for me."
When he talked about Putin, he slammed a spoon on a placemat on the table. Russian authorities have tried unsuccessfully to put him on Interpol's search list. He brushed off the dangers of taking on the Russian president.
In July, Browder told the BBC Magnitsky's conviction was "a truly historic and shameful moment for Russia"
"I'd rather die with a clean soul than live a life of compromise and fear," he said.
He said that he wants to make sure law enforcement officials track every dollar that the Russians made off the alleged scam - and seize their assets, regardless of where the money is.
"That way they don't get to keep it," he said. So far he has managed to ferret out $135m of the $230m that he believes was stolen.
A senior state department official said names would be added - but could not confirm which individuals would appear on the list.
Officials in Washington, as well as attorneys in New York, have been studying the Magnitsky Act over the past several months. It has also been cited in court documents.
In September, for example, the US attorney in Manhattan, Preet Bharara, filed a civil forfeiture complaint against a real estate corporation, Prevezon, that owns property in New York.
Bharara said individuals received money through the scam that Magnitsky claimed to have exposed.
"While New York is a world financial capital," said Bharara, "it is not a safe haven for criminals seeking to hide their loot."
Denis Katsyv is the owner of Prevezon, according to the court documents, and Aleksandr Litvak is his business partner. Timofei Krit is described as a director.
"My companies and I do not stand accused by any law enforcement agency of engaging in any action to defraud the Russian Treasury," said Katsyv said in a statement provided by his American lawyer Mark Cymrot.
"My companies and I do not stand accused by any law enforcement agency of being involved, directly or indirectly, in the death of Sergei Magnitsky."
Efforts to reach Krit and Litvak through lawyers were not successful.
Regardless of what the report on the Magnitsky Act says, one thing is clear. Over the past four years Browder has made an extraordinary investment in the promotion of human rights in Russia.
His efforts raise the question - to what extent can one guy, armed with lots of fancy friends and a record as an investor, change the Russian way of doing business?
"You should ask that question to Khodorkovsky," said Masha Gessen, a journalist and the author of The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.
She was referring to the former head of Yukos oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who has been held in a penal colony for more than a decade.
As Gessen and other activists know, it takes more than money and street smarts to change things in Moscow. One needs luck - and to be in the right place at the right time.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The illness of Russian evil has plagued me”
William Browder
Browder was living in London when Russian officials began to crack down on his company. He is acutely aware of the fact that it was not he, but one of his lawyers, who paid the price for his efforts at institutional reform.
He is a British citizen - he gave up his US passport years ago. He still dresses like an American, though, and sometimes talks like one.
He wears loafers and loose-fitting jeans, not tight like a European. Over breakfast in Washington he spoke about the ability of officials to make rational decisions.
He said he believed government officials would follow "simple logic" when putting together their report on the Magnitsky Act.
It is a hopeful view. The real story of the bill, like most things in Washington, was hardly linear. To a certain extent the bill was passed because of his single-minded focus on the goal. The success also depended on politics and timing, and little of it was rational.
At breakfast he poured milk over a bowl of homemade granola - but not much milk, just a drizzle. While he can sound like an American, he acts like an ascetic who is devoted to justice.
It is a break from the stuff one hears in Washington, but also daunting. One is reminded that one's own life is ordinary, not to mention filled with compromises.
He grew up on the south side of Chicago. His grandfather, Earl, was the general secretary of the American Communist Party from 1932-45. His father, Felix, was born in Moscow and later became chairman of the mathematics department at the University of Chicago.
