Report: Russia should liberalize pretrial in business cases – min

MOSCOW, Feb 26 (PRIME) -- Law enforcers should treat local and foreign businessmen equally during trials over business issues, and Russia should liberalize pretrial in such cases without placing people in custody, Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Rossiya 24 television channel in an interview broadcast late on Monday.

“You know, any actions of law enforcers concern businessmen, and it obviously does not improve the investment climate on the one hand. But on the other hand, we should not differentiate foreigners and locals here. If you work in Russia, you comply with the Russian laws. I would not like to draw any lines here between foreign businessmen, Americans, and Russians. If someone violates law, they should stand before court,” he said.

“The second thing here is that I completely support the goal set by the president on liberalization of criminal legislation from the point of view of pretrial. Many accused people are held in detention centers that reduce their rights and abilities even though no one has proven their guilt. That is why we should try to liberalize pretrial conditions of an accused person. It is not mandatory to hold them behind bars, we may introduce house arrest or other measures. We already have these mechanisms, we should just use them more.”

The Basmanny District Court of Moscow earlier arrested Michael Calvey, the founder of Baring Vostok, and five other defendants for two months in a 2.5 billion ruble embezzlement case. The Moscow City Court will check the legitimacy of Calvey’s arrest on February 28.

Investigators believe that Calvey, his partner Philippe Delpal, and several other unidentified managers convinced shareholders of Orient Express Bank to vote for a compensation agreement to receive a 59.9% stake in International Financial Technology Group instead of money. The shares were valued at 3 billion rubles under the deal, while their real value amounted to 600,000 rubles.

Besides Calvey and Delpal, the court arrested Ivan Zyuzin, director for investment at Baring Vostok, Vagan Abgaryan, partner of Baring Vostok focusing on media, real estate, and construction materials projects, Maxim Vladimirov, CEO of First Collection Bureau, and Alexei Kordichev, chairman of the board of directors of Vyatka-Bank, now known as Norvik Bank, and former CEO of Orient Express Bank.

(65.2582 rubles – U.S. $1)

End