Jo Freeman's Review of Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
FREEZING ORDER: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath
by Bill Browder
New York: Simon & Schuster, xii + 313 pages with scattered photographs
by Jo Freeman
Bill Browder has written a political thriller. Covering roughly the decade ending in 2018, he traces his efforts to sanction corrupt Russian officials who had murdered his friend and Moscow lawyer Sergei Magnitsky. In turn, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin sought to put Browder into a Russian jail and destroy everyone connected to him.
Receiving his Stanford MBA in 1989, Browder founded Hermitage Capital Management (HCM) in 1996 to invest in Russia as it was privatizing after the fall of the Soviet Union. A little background explains his interest in Russia. His grandfather lived in the Soviet Union and married a Russian woman, before returning to the United States to head the US Communist Party for 15 years. Born in New Jersey, Bill Browder became a UK citizen in 1999 out of disgust at how his grandparents were treated by the US government.
HCM made a lot of money investing in Russia, but also exposed a lot of corruption. Putin expelled Browder and put his lawyer in jail, where he was beaten to death in 2009. Browder’s revenge was to pass Magnitsky Acts, in order to punish Russian human rights violators. The US version became law in 2012. Browder lobbied for Magnitsky Acts in Canada and the EU, as well as enforcement worldwide. In 2016 Congress passed a Global Magnitsky Act which expanded the foreign government officials who could be sanctioned for human rights violations.
Russia responded by putting Browder on trial in absentia and Magnitsky posthumously. After the usual automatic conviction, Russia asked Interpol to arrest Browder and send him back to Russia. It did so in Spain in 2018, but he was released. Russia also banned the adoption of Russian orphans by Americans. In subsequent discussions with American candidates for office “adoptions” became code for the Magnitsky Acts. Russia also promulgated disinformation campaigns to make its claims appear to be legitimate.
Since Putin and the oligarchs moved their money out of Russia by buying and selling assets all over the world, Browder asked numerous prosecutors to freeze them. Hence the title. A freezing order is a legal procedure that prevents defendants from moving their assets beyond the reach of a court.
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