Oligarch v. Oligarch: London's Courts Attract Litigious Tycoons

Berezovsky v. Abramovich is the highest-profile (and highest-paying) case to date in a London legal trend that only seems to keep gaining steam. An estimated 60 percent of the cases in England's commercial and chancery courts now have ties to Russia or other former Soviet bloc countries--including many that involve oligarchs like Abramovich and Berezovsky, who have long-standing grudges and are making London their arena of choice in which to battle things out. English lawyers like to point out that their courts are incorruptible, in contrast to a Russian system that is often described as being open to influence, both political and financial, especially where the biggest fish are concerned. But it also seems to be a sort of fashion statement among oligarchs these days. "It's almost like a designer tie," says Brian Zimbler, one of the longest-practicing Western lawyers in Moscow. "These oligarchs like to dress well, they like fancy cars, they have houses in the south of France. And if there are lawsuits, they like them to be in the London courts."

The London legal scene has been happy to oblige. Competition for oligarch clients is fierce, and the firms who win them are raking in record fees. (The fee for Abramovich's lead counsel is rumored to be between $4.7 million and $15 million, an astronomical price tag even at the lower end.) Meanwhile, booming cottage industries have sprung up for things like Russian court translators and paralegals specializing in Russian law. This has been a boon to a struggling economy that has seen law as one of the few sources of growth-legal services accounted for 1.8 percent of Britain's GDP in 2009.
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And so oligarchs in London must stay on the alert for writs, on occasion from one another. ("Sometimes oligarchs try to serve other oligarchs," one CIS lawyer in London says.) Private investigators are employed to track oligarchs' time in London, in hopes of making the case for residency, which allows jurisdiction in English courts-by British standards, just a few weeks in town annually can be enough to make the case. Even divorce lawyers in on the CIS game. This promises more high-profile cases on the way, often featuring the headline-grabbing marriage of brass-knuckle Russian businessmen and the British high society scene. "The docket looks full for years to come," Shaw says.
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Rupert D'Cruz, who is secretary of the British-Russian Law Association and is one of England's top experts on CIS cases, says the English courts, with their long history of settling complex international disputes, are uniquely suited to handle convoluted cases like the oligarchs battles, which are often based on handshake agreements-saunas are said to be the Russian equivalent to the golf course for sealing deals. "It's often done on trust," he says. "And when things go wrong there is a great problem of putting together the jigsaw of who said what, and what was agreed."
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The big guys often aren't used to playing nice, which can make things tough for lawyers. London CIS specialists report working on cases where they suspect the key documents are forged, and where clients have to be reminded that they can't try to buy the judge. Often they worry that their offices are bugged. Adam Greaves, a lawyer in London who has tried a long line of high-profile CIS cases, says he's had clients with bullet wounds and knife scars, including one who had an old wound running all the way up his neck. Cases have been filled with tales of things like illegal share dilutions and staged bankruptcies. "You've got to hand it to the Russians. They know how to develop a convoluted fraud," he says.

The oligarchs also are used to getting what they want, and not afraid to take grudges against their opponents as far as they can, sometimes happy to tarnish a rival's reputation even if it means hurting their own case. "They are generally extremely aggressive litigators. They don't take no for an answer," Greaves says. "They will litigate every point, including bad ones, and frequently against your advice-either to spill out information, or cause the other side grief, or make spurious or defamatory statements."

United Nations secretary-general arrives in Serbia

Ban is holding separate talks with Jeremić - who will in September take over as UN General Assembly chair - and Serbian President Tomislav Nikolić and, PM-designate Ivica Dačić.

In Ban's talks with Serbian officials, special emphasis is expected to be placed on Kosovo, where the UN secretary-general will visit the members of the UN mission and meet with officials of the government in Priština.. 

While in Kosovo, Ban will also visit the medieval Serb Orthodox monastery of Visoki (High) Dečani, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. He will also travel to the town of Prizren. 

Ban's tour of the Balkans started on July 20, and he has so far visited Slovenia, Croatia, and Montenegro. After Belgrade and Priština, the UN chief will travel to Macedonia, and then Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Officials in southern Russia held over floods

Russian police have arrested three officials in the southern Krymsk region accused of failing to warn residents of disastrous flooding earlier this month.

The former head of Krymsk district, who had already been fired for his handling of the floods, and the mayor of Krymsk town are among those held.

The floods claimed the lives of 171 people, mostly in the town of Krymsk.
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"Essentially ignoring the weather service forecasts, the suspects did not inform the population about the looming danger and did not take steps to evacuate people," spokesman for the Investigative Committee said to Russian TV, according to the AFP news agency.

The floods were the first major disaster of President Vladimir Putin's third term in office, and federal authorities have been eager to show they are heeding criticism of the official response, which has been voiced even in normally pro-government media outlets.

Echoes of 1878

The Balkans Game, Then and Now
by Nebojsa Malic, July 20, 2012

"The Balkans of today is a product of Imperial intervention, created and maintained by force, deception and propaganda. Those who served Empire’s purposes – e.g. Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, the Albanians or the Bosnian Muslims – feel they should have gained more in the bargain. The Serbs, who lost out at every turn, aren’t willing to concede any more. None are happy with the status quo. Yet the Empire persists in efforts to make it final."

Punk Band Feels Wrath of a Sterner Kremlin

MOSCOW — When four young women in balaclavas performed a crude anti-Putin song on the altar of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in February, it seemed like just one more episode in a season of audacious, absurdist and occasionally offensive protest.

Instead, the case of the young punk rockers, whose group is called Pussy Riot, is becoming a bellwether event in the Russian capital, signaling an end to the chilly tolerance the Kremlin displayed in response to the winter’s large demonstrations.

The three women arrested after the performance have been held in custody for more than four months, a term that was extended on Friday by six months, through next January. They could be sent to prison for seven years.

Preliminary hearings in the case offered some of the most striking courtroom images since the trial of Mikhail B. Khodorkovsky, which took place in the same building. While that case tested Russians’ feelings toward a billionaire businessman, this one picks as its targets slender young women with hooded sweatshirts and Twitter accounts — avatars of the protest movement itself.
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The government picked a ripe opportunity to crack down, since many Russians found the cathedral performance offensive. It took months for the case to provoke support for the women, even in the opposition-minded city of Moscow. But the balance seemed to shift last month, when a roster of famous artists and musicians, including some vocal supporters of Mr. Putin, signed a petition contending that the case “compromises the Russian judicial system and undermines trust in the authorities.”

Serb leaders from northern Kosovo send open letter to Ban

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA -- Heads of the four north Kosovo municipalities sent on Thursday an open letter to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ahead of his tour of the region.

In it, they underlined that the entire Serb community and the four Serb municipalities in the northern part of the province are at serious risk, and that in the process of finding a solution for the Kosovo issue, the UN and UN SC Resolution 1244 must not be circumvented.

Taking into account numerous killings, incidents and pressures, the security situation in Kosovo and Metohija gives a cause for concern, the letter reads, adding that the lives, human rights and freedoms of members of the Serb ethnic community are at particular risk.

Underscoring that in the last 13 years, more than a thousand Serbs were killed, while tens of thousands Serb houses and apartments are still usurped, or were burnt down or demolished, four municipal presidents claim that several hundred thousand Albanians still possess arms, and that they have not been disarmed as was stipulated in UN SC Resolution 1244.

“The fact that more than a thousand (ethnic) Albanians, who committed murders and serous crimes against Serbs, have the full freedom of movement and take part in the political life, as they have not been prosecuted, is yet another cause for concern,” the letter reads.
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Together with Albanian leaders from Priština, certain international actors and power centers intend to the complete the project of Kosovo's independence by using force, the letter adds.

Inquiry Seeks Accomplices of Bomber in Bulgaria

BURGAS, Bulgaria — Police officers fanned out across the tranquil beach towns here on the Black Sea on Friday, searching for clues to the identity of the bomber who blew up a bus filled with Israeli tourists on Wednesday, focusing new attention on his possible accomplice or accomplices.

Bulgaria’s interior minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, said at a news conference Friday that investigators had determined that the suicide bomber, who died along with five Israeli tourists and a Bulgarian bus driver, was a foreigner. He later told state television that the attacker used nearly seven pounds of TNT to build his bomb.

“He couldn’t have been alone, a person alone in an unknown country,” said a senior Bulgarian official familiar with the investigation. “We believe it took at least a week to organize.”
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Micky Rosenfeld, a spokesman for the Israeli police, said a team of eight forensics officers had spent about 12 hours at the site in Burgas. They returned late Thursday night with “a lot of evidence,” Mr. Rosenfeld said, which they are giving to Israeli and other security agencies.

The Bulgarian Interior Ministry said in a statement that experts from France, the United States and Switzerland working for Interpol were expected to arrive here on Friday. At the news conference in Burgas on Friday, Mr. Tsvetanov said investigators would have to sift through “more than 100 bags” of evidence gathered from the crime scene to determine the full picture of the attack before details could be made public. The investigation is painstaking work, he said, noting that the remains of the bomber were dispersed “in a 50-60-meter perimeter,” or up to nearly 200 feet.

The intensity of the investigation reflected not only the severity of the crime, but its international significance. Israel immediately blamed Iran and its surrogate, Hezbollah, a charge Iran denied. American officials speaking on the condition of anonymity identified the suicide bomber as a member of a Hezbollah cell operating in Bulgaria.