Rappler Talk: Bill Browder on ‘Red Notice’ and his fight for justice

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler talks to William “Bill” Browder, investor and author of the New York Times bestseller Red Notice.

Browder, the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management, was the largest foreign investor in Russia until 2005, when he was denied entry to the country for exposing corruption in Russian state-owned companies.

In 2009, his Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was killed in a Moscow prison after uncovering and exposing a $230 million fraud committed by Russian government officials.

Browder has spent the last 10 years conducting a global campaign seeking to deny visa applications and to freeze assets of individual human rights abusers, particularly those who played a role in Magnitsky’s false arrest, torture, and death.

The United States was the first to impose these sanctions with the passage of the 2012 “Magnitsky Act.” A Global Magnitsky Bill, which broadens the scope of the US Magnitsky Act to human rights abusers around the world, was passed at the end of 2016.

The UK passed a Magnitsky amendment in April 2017. Magnitsky legislation was passed in Estonia in December 2016, Canada in October 2017 and in
Lithuania in November 2017. Similar legislation is being pursued in Australia, France, Denmark, the Netherlands, South Africa, Sweden, and Ukraine.

Browder published Red Notice in February 2015 – an account of his
experience in Russia and his ongoing fight for justice for Sergei Magnitsky. – Rappler.com