Red Notice & Putin’s Russia: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice – Bill Browder, CEO & Founder of Hermitage Capital Management, who has been widely described in the global press as Russian President Putin’s Enemy Number One speaks to The Oxford Guild. The event is 100% FREE & OPEN TO ALL! This will undoubtedly be one of the most controversial talks of the year and promises to spark a fascinating and topical debate and is a truly unique opportunity to hear from and ask questions of such an interesting and high profile guest – do not miss out on your seat! TO ATTEND YOU MUST REGISTER YOUR INTEREST HERE (for security reasons registration is required in advance of the talk and there will be a guestlist on the door): https://tinyurl.com/BillBrowderRedNotice
Bill Browder, CEO & Founder of Hermitage Capital Management and Head of Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, is speaking to The Oxford Guild in a specially organised event from 5pm on Friday 19th January (1st week) in Trinity College’s Danson Room. He is also author of New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man’s Fight for Justice, and at one time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. Mr Browder, who has developed a reputation for his anti-corruption campaigning, will give a firsthand account of corruption, dirty politics, and murder in Russia, as told by one of Putin’s Most Wanted. Browder, an outspoken critic of Putin, in July 2017 testified to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 US presidential election through use of persons in Washington, DC. ‘Red Notice is a searing exposé of the wholesale whitewash by Russian authorities of Magnitsky’s imprisonment and murder, and the shadowy heart of the Kremlin. Browder, the hedge fund manager who employed Magnitsky, takes us through his battles with ruthless oligarchs in the turbulent landscape of post-Soviet Union Moscow, to his expulsion from Russia on Putin’s orders’.
He gave up his U.S. citizenship in 1998 to avoid paying taxes related to foreign investment. After having business in Russia for 10 years, Browder was refused entry to Russia in 2005 as a ‘threat to national security’. Browder maintains that this was actually because he had exposed corporate corruption in the country. 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. After the death in prison in 2009 of Sergei Magnitsky at the age of 37, a Russian lawyer and auditor who had represented Browder’s company and conducted an investigation into massive tax fraud related to it, Browder lobbied for several years for Congress to pass the “Magnitsky Act”, a law to punish Russian human rights violators, which was signed into law in 2012 by President Barack Obama. 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. In 2013, Browder was tried in absentia in Russia for tax fraud, jointly in a posthumous prosecution of Magnitsky. He was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison. Interpol rejected Russian requests to arrest Browder, saying the case was political. Browder has been accused of three murders, which was widely regarded as an attempt to discredit him. In 2014, the European Parliament voted for sanctions against 30 Russians believed complicit in the Magnitsky case; this was the first time it had taken such action. On October 19, 2017, Canada enacted its own Magnitsky Act, which allows for the freezing of assets and visa bans on officials from Russia and other nations considered to be guilty of human rights violations, and prohibits Canadian firms from dealing with foreign nationals who have grossly violated human rights. Other countries including Estonia, Lithuania, and the United Kingdom, have also enacted their own version of the Magnitsky Act. On October 21, 2017, in retaliation for the Canadian Magnitsky Act, Putin placed Browder on Interpol’s arrest list. That same day, Browder’s U.S. visa was revoked, effectively banning him from the United States. After a protest by U.S. Congressional leaders, his visa was restored the following day. Putin’s arrest warrant request was rejected by Interpol on October 26, 2017.
Praise for Red Notice
“This indispensable look at the brutal realities of the Putin regime is of even greater relevance thanks to Bill Browder’s unique expertise and personal experience inside the belly of the beast.”
–Garry Kasparov, chess Grand Master and political activist
“A sizzling account of Mr Browder’s rise, fall and metamorphosis from bombastic financier to renowned human-rights activist … Reads more like a financial thriller than a real-life story.”
–The Economist
A must-read for anyone interested in understanding the culture of corruption and impunity in Putin’s Russia today, and Browder’s heroic example of how to fight back.
–US Senator John McCain
This will be a very interactive event with the opportunity for you to ask questions and it promises to be a fast paced evening covering some very controversial and high profile topics and issues. If you would like to ballot for the chance to meet Mr Browder and speak to him directly and take photos in a private reception before the event please email president@theoxfordguild.com ASAP.
WHEN: 5pm, Friday 19th November 2018 (1st week)
WHERE: Danson Room, Trinity College
TO ATTEND YOU MUST REGISTER HERE (for security reasons registration is required in advance of the talk and there will be a guestlist on the door): https://tinyurl.com/BillBrowderRedNotice
