Congressional leaders, his visa waiver was restored the following day. After the initial request, Browder's visa waiver for the United States was automatically suspended. On October 21, 2017, the Russian government attempted to place Browder on Interpol's arrest list of criminal fugitives, the fifth such request, which Interpol eventually rejected on October 26, 2017. 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. Interpol rejected Russian requests to arrest Browder, saying the case was political. Both men-Magnitsky had died four years prior-were convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. In 2013, both Magnitsky and Browder were tried in absentia in Russia for tax fraud. Īfter Magnitsky's death, Browder lobbied 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. The reregistration of the Hermitage holding companies was an intermediate step before the perpetrators used those companies to apply for a fraudulent $230 million tax refund, awarded on December 24, 2007. Magnitsky was subsequently arrested by Russian authorities and died in prison, having been denied proper medical treatment. Magnitsky discovered that while those documents were in the custody of the police, they had been used to fraudulently re-register Hermitage's holding companies to the name of an ex-convict. Browder assigned Sergei Magnitsky, head of the tax practice at Firestone Duncan, to investigate the purpose of the raid.

Twenty-five more officers raided the Moscow office of Browder's American law firm, Firestone Duncan, seizing the corporate registration documents for Hermitage's investment holding companies. Įighteen months after Browder was deported, on June 4, 2007, Hermitage Capital's offices in Moscow were raided by twenty-five officers of Russia's Interior Ministry. In retaliation, on November 13, 2005, Browder was refused entry to Russia, deported to the UK, and declared a threat to Russian national security.

Browder took on large Russian companies such as Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz, Unified Energy Systems, and Sidanco.

The primary investment strategy of Browder was shareholder rights activism. In 1997, the Hermitage Fund was the best-performing fund in the world, up by 238%.

The fund, and associated accounts, eventually grew to $4.5 billion of assets under management. The Hermitage Fund was founded in partnership with Republic National Bank, with $25 million in seed capital. He is the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, the investment advisor to the Hermitage Fund, which at one time was the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. William Felix Browder (born April 23, 1964) is an American-born British financier and political activist.

Red Notice by Bill Browder