Anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder says ‘whole class of British lawyers’ making money out of lawsuits against journalists, dissidents and whistleblowers
The anti-corruption campaigner Bill Browder is calling on the US to issue visa bans against British lawyers who he has accused of “enabling” Russian oligarchs.
The US-born financier, an outspoken and longtime critic of Russian president Vladimir Putin, has said that installing such a ban would strike at the heart of what he described as a persistent problem of oligarchs using the UK legal system against journalists and whistleblowers, tying them up in expensive lawsuits.
Browder suggested sanctions could ultimately be targeted at any legal and financial experts who it could be shown have helped oligarchs hide their assets, but said his initial proposed blacklist was focused on British lawyers involved in libel cases.
Browder described “this whole class of British lawyers” instructed by Russians and those with links to Russia to bring “lawsuits against journalists, dissidents and whistleblowers, myself included, and they make money”.
“There’s this industry,” Browder said. “It will be pretty hard to legislate away the idea that a plaintiff can hire a lawyer to sue for libel, because how do you define what’s good and what’s bad? But if you identify a lawyer who has been doing this on a regular basis – going after people – the United States does not have to give them a visa to come to this country.”
The activist has...
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