In 2009, Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer for Hermitage Capital Management, was tortured and died in a Moscow prison after investigating a $230 million tax fraud committed by corrupt officials. In response to his murder, Congress passed the Magnitsky Act in 2012, sanctioning those responsible for Magnitsky’s death from entering the U.S. or utilizing the U.S. financial system. Three years later, Congress is considering expanding the Magnitsky Act to sanction human rights abusers worldwide (The Global Magnitsky Act).
As the Magnitsky case highlights, agents of grand corruption often count on the Western financial system as a vehicle for legitimizing and protecting their ill-gotten gains. While our financial institutions sometimes welcome the flow of illicit capital, our importance to the global financial system offers us far greater leverage over kleptocratic regimes than is currently acknowledged.
To address the current impetus for expanding the Magnitsky Act, Hudson Institute welcomed Bill Browder, author of Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice.
Please join Hudson Institute for a fireside chat with Senior Fellow and Keystone Defense Initiative Director Rebeccah Heinrichs and John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and co-director of the Urban Warfare Project.
Join Hudson Institute and the Ben Franklin Fellowship for a two-panel discussion examining US policy as it confronts the crisis of terror in Nigeria.
Join Hudson Institute's Center for the Economics of the Internet for a keynote address given by Tricia Paoletta on the Trump administration's progress in managing and reallocating the electromagnetic radio frequency spectrum from the federal domain.
Join Hudson Institute for a discussion with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Senior Fellow Harold Furchtgott-Roth.
