United Kingdom: Battle of the Russian tycoons

Britain has just refereed a titanic clash between two Russian oligarchs, said Luke Harding in The Guardian. In the biggest private litigation in the country’s history, former media tycoon Boris Berezovsky sued oil magnate Roman Abramovich for $5 billion—and lost in the most humiliating way, when a British judge gave him “an almighty and devastating kick up the backside.” Berezovsky claimed that he had been Abramovich’s partner in Sibneft, an oil giant set up in the 1990s, when Boris Yeltsin bought political support by bestowing state assets on select businessmen. Judge Elizabeth Gloster, who apparently succumbed to the handsome Abramovich’s famous charm, rejected that assertion outright, saying that Abramovich had hired Berezovsky only for his political connections—to provide what the Russians call krysha, or a roof. Then she heaped on the insults, saying that when Berezovsky wasn’t outright lying on the stand he was offering untruths that he “had deluded himself into believing.” Abramovich, she said approvingly, was “careful and thoughtful” in his testimony. Ultimately, the verdict came down to believability, as there was no paper trail to support either man’s version of events.

Certainly the trial was “an enjoyably lurid spectacle,” said Tony Brenton in The Times. We got to hear all about glamorous meetings in exotic locales, replete with “bimbos, boats, and bodyguards.” But the trial also revealed grim truths about Vladimir Putin’s Russia. When the Kremlin set its sights on the oligarchs’ assets, Abramovich played the game, selling his company, pocketing the proceeds, and remaining loyal to Putin. Berezovsky, by contrast, struggled against the Kremlin and ultimately had to flee to the U.K., his fortune dwindling away.

The shocking verdict shows an utter ignorance of Russian business, said Vera Chelishcheva in Novaya Gazeta (Russia). The judge said Berezovsky’s role in Sibneft was “mere” political protection—as if that were valueless. But in Russia, especially in the 1990s, that was everything. The judge also ruled, preposterously, that Putin hadn’t forced Berezovsky to sell his TV channel and flee Russia. Whatever the ruling, the trial alone made it clear “how dubious the origin of Russian capital is, and how corrupt the authorities are.”

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

How did so much of this shady money land in Britain? asked Mary Dejevsky in The Independent.The lawsuit was launched in a British court partly because our legal system is vastly more trustworthy than Russia’s, but also because both tycoons live here and own British assets. “Why is it so easy for someone with no obvious ties to Britain to set up shop here and shovel in the cash without any inquiries being made into its provenance?” Our blithe willingness to accept—indeed, to launder—dirty Russian money has “pernicious consequences” for our country. Britain is now the site of mysterious assassinations, like the 2006 poisoning of Russian dissident spy Alexander Litvinenko. We have only “our own greed and regulatory laxness” to blame.