Russian President Vladimir Putin made in his speech to the Nation yesterday, a clear message: “The investment is set to rise in 2020 to be six to seven percent,” he demanded. “We need to get rid of everything which limits the freedom and Initiative of entrepreneurs. An honest company can’t work under constant legal pressure, constantly in danger, to be brought before a court.”
Putin knows what he is talking about: last week the Management of the largest foreign investment Fund, was arrested. The head of Baring Vostok, the 51-year-old American Michael Calvey, has been working for 25 years in Russia and is considered to be of integrity and committed Investor. Now, however, up to ten years in prison for fraud threaten him and five of his people. The wakes, even in Kremlin circles discomfort: The allegations are “dubious,” and for two months, arranged in the form of detention “clearly illegal,” said the President appointed an Ombudsman for the rights of entrepreneurs. Disputes among business partners belong to a civil court and not before a criminal court. The economic expert Alexander Kudrin, a former Finance Minister and adviser to Putin, said that it was a disaster for the Russian economy.
Not a question of guilt and punishment
In this case, the Image of Russia in the case of creditors is bad enough: Because of corruption, legal uncertainty, geopolitical strife and Western sanctions, the direct investment in the country dropped again last year to over a billion dollars. Some observers understand Calveys arrest as a clear Signal to the Kremlin to be more to Western investment interest: If someone, of Russia know as well as Calvey, could get into such a Situation, other investors, good advice is expensive. And everyone must now ask whether he is actually still safe.
The authorities blame the Americans, he had cheated the shareholders of a Russian regional Bank. Has to be said to have sued one of his business partners, the good relations with the secret service and the powerful state corporations. Many experts are not convinced, therefore, that it is about blame and punishment, but about someone using corrupt security services and the courts the Business to recover and to put the money in your own pocket.
He plays by the rules
Parallels are quickly drawn: in 2003, the head of the largest Russian Oil company Yukos, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, for tax evasion and fraud charges. In an unfair trial, he was sentenced to ten years camp imprisonment, his company was sold to Russian energy giants like Rosneft. Or, in 2005: at that Time, the US Investor Bill Browder was forced to leave the country, because his investment Fund was created with the gas company Gazprom. As one of his employees, the lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, later in prison, died, started Browder in the USA, the human rights campaign. The American Congress introduced in 2011, the Magnitsky Act, a law that prohibits Russian officials from entering the United States. Calveys arrest documents, that Russia is “a completely corrupt country in which we can invest,” said Browder.
at the time, Browder Calvey commands today, the largest investment Fund in Russia, which has fed over the years, 3.7 billion dollars in the Russian economy. However, in contrast to Browder Calvey was always covered. He played according to the rules, written and unwritten, he stayed away from the oligarchs and the powerful state corporations and has also invested in the highly corrupt energy sector. Instead, he worked with small and medium-sized companies especially in the technology industry. One of his success stories he wrote with the long-term commitment in the case of Yandex, the largest Russian Internet search engine. The head of Yandex vouched for Calvey.
In custody and in a fighting mood
politically Calvey has exposed, in contrast to Khodorkovsky and Browder, never Expo. He has met Putin several times in person, and criticism is always held back. This strategy went on for almost 25 years, but now Calvey is tripped. And if he is the Kremlin’s important enough to be in the machinations of their own followers, to intervene, is still open. “Presumably the government is not directly responsible, indirectly responsible, because it is capable of strong institutions to protect property rights and an independent judiciary,” said Analyst Ben Aris in “the Moscow Times”. The Kremlin had abandoned the Western investors and preferred to rely on Asian or Arab investors, who had less conceit, and not Western sanctions give a shit.
However, Michael Calvey don’t want to give in, he was in a “fighting mood”, let his lawyer to align. And according to the Statement of Vladimir Putin in front of the whole Nation of the Americans can hope at least. (Editorial Tamedia)
Created: 21.02.2019, 16:04 p.m.
