U.S. authorities study possible criminal investigation of the activities of Igor Shuvalov
FCPA - Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - is U.S. law aimed at combating international corruption, provides severe penalties for U.S. citizens or companies involved in corruption schemes with officials abroad.
Here is a text of an email that was sent by an unnamed US Congressional staff member to all the FCPA officials in the US Justice Department:
“With so many stories on the Russian elections this weekend you may have missed this potentially explosive article on Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov.
“How a Putin Aide Gained $119 million”
Known as one of the "liberals" in Putin's camp, Shuvalov, like Putin and Medvedev, is big on anti-corruption rhetoric. Here he is in Chicago a couple months ago citing the need for greater income and asset disclosure;
"We have a certain plan but I don't think that we could do what they do in China. They shoot approximately five thousand people annually, maybe I'm wrong, but that doesn't help. So we need to find another remedy. We need to provide more transparency for people in office, just like myself. We need to publish everything about our incomes and about our assets and I think it'll become deeper and deeper every year, so the whole system will be stricter for the officials. But it should relate not only to federal officials because, for me, it's not difficult to publish all this.";
And here's an interesting conversation he had with Hermitage CEO William Browder (Magnitsky case) at Davos this year.
Click to viewRecall that Swiss prosecutors froze $8m Euros on the heels of this Barron's story, and, if properly followed up by U.S. law enforcement, this Shuvalov story could lead to prosecutions.
A key point is that Eugene Shvidler (an American citizen and Roman Abramovich's deputy) appears to have given a $50m bribe to Igor Shuvalov in 2005 when Shuvalov was a government official. Shuvalov then lent it to Alisher Usmanov (a facebook investor) and ended up with a $100m uneconomic windfall. Shuvalov then used his government position to benefit Abramovich and Usmanov with several high profile government actions. And Shuvalov hid the wealth by pretending he was renting the houses he bought with the money.
If true, this is a flagrant violation of the FCPA and there seems to be a paper trail as proof. DOJ has prosecuted others for far less than what is alleged of Shvidler. Remember the Frederic Bourke case.
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