Bill Browder is an American-born British financier and campaigner who co-founded Hermitage Capital Management, once one of the largest foreign investors in Russia. After his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky died in Russian custody in 2009, he led the campaign for the Magnitsky Act and similar sanctions laws around the world. He is the author of Red Notice and Freezing Order.
Brian Rose has interviewed Browder twice on London Real, in 2018 and 2022. They have talked about investing in post-Soviet Russia, corruption, the Magnitsky case, money laundering and why Browder says Vladimir Putin wants him dead.
Both interviews are listed below in order with a short summary.
Vladimir Putin Wants Me Dead (2018). The full story behind Red Notice and the Magnitsky Act. Follow it with Freezing Order (2022), recorded after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Browder describes moving to Russia in the 1990s and building Hermitage Capital into one of the largest foreign investors in the country. In 2022 he described losing most of his clients’ money in the 1998 default, and then studying how oligarchs were stealing from the companies he had invested in.
Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer working for Hermitage, uncovered a large tax fraud involving Russian officials. He was arrested and died in a Moscow detention centre in 2009. Browder has spent the years since seeking accountability for his death.
Browder campaigned for the US Magnitsky Act, signed in 2012, which lets the government freeze the assets of and ban travel by people involved in human rights abuses and corruption. Similar laws have since been passed in the UK, Canada, the EU and elsewhere.
In both interviews Browder argues that the most effective way to put pressure on corrupt regimes is to target the money officials hide abroad, which he says is why Vladimir Putin regards him as an enemy.
Bill Browder is an American-born British financier and campaigner, born in 1964, who co-founded Hermitage Capital Management. He is best known for leading the campaign for Magnitsky sanctions after the death of his lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in Russian custody.
Across two interviews in 2018 and 2022, Browder talked about investing in Russia, corruption, the death of Sergei Magnitsky, the Magnitsky Act, money laundering and his conflict with Vladimir Putin’s government.
Start with Vladimir Putin Wants Me Dead from 2018, which tells the full story. Then watch Freezing Order from 2022.
Twice: in March 2018 and November 2022.
The Magnitsky Act is a 2012 US law named after Sergei Magnitsky. It allows sanctions such as asset freezes and travel bans against people involved in human rights abuses and corruption, and several other countries have passed similar laws.
Freezing Order, published in 2022, is Browder’s account of what happened after Red Notice: the money laundering trail from the fraud Magnitsky uncovered, and the Russian government’s attempts to target Browder abroad.
Official site: billbrowder.com
Join 6 million+ followers & subscribers. Full-length interviews with world-class guests, straight to your inbox every week.
We take your privacy seriously. We will never sell your information.
Chat
