Russia Opens Case Into Browder’s Hermitage Buying Gazprom Stock
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Russia opened a criminal case into purchases of OAO Gazprom stock by Hermitage Capital Management Ltd. as prosecutors prepare for the trial of the fund’s founder and his dead legal adviser on tax-fraud charges.
Hermitage head William Browder is accused of illegally buying about 131.6 million Gazprom shares for about 2.1 billion rubles ($70 million) at a time when foreign ownership of the world’s biggest natural-gas producer was restricted, Mikhail Alexandrov, head of the Interior ministry’s investigative directorate for organized crime and corruption, said today on state television.