Category Archives: USA

BP seeks to bring Russian adventure with TNK to an end

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Here is my latest piece published in the IBA Global Insight newsfeed:

When the news came last month that BP was looking to end its Russian tie-up with TNK, few people were surprised.

BP has long been wracked by disputes between its Russian shareholders and this was no clearer than during the Rosneft debacle last year. In January 2011, BP and state-owned Russian energy company Rosneft shocked the world by signing a US$16bn share swap deal to jointly exploit oil and gas reserves in Russia’s Arctic shelf. The deal would have made Rosneft the largest single shareholder in BP, but it was not to be.

Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR), which owns 50 per cent of TNK-BP, claimed that the terms of the share swap deal were in violation of its shareholder agreement, which clearly stipulates that BP must carry out all projects in Russia and the Ukraine through TNK-BP. AAR filed a lawsuit and after retaining Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, went on to obtain an injunction on the deal in London’s High Court in April last year.

Published on 12-07-12. Read on here

Russia's posthumous trial of lawyer shows corruption is still rife

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Here is my latest article published in the Guardian:

This week it was announced that the Russian authorities are planning to resubmit a tax evasion case for trial. Nothing out of the ordinary, you might think, except for the fact that the defendant is deceased.

The accused in question is Sergei Magnitsky, a Russian lawyer who died in a Moscow prison cell in November 2009. Magnitsky was initially detained in November 2008 on suspicion of assisting one of his clients – UK-based investment fund Hermitage Capital – evade about $17.4m in taxes. Although the original allegations were lodged against Hermitage, during the investigation Magnitsky discovered what he believed to be a cover-up for Russian state officials to embezzle an estimated $230m from the Russian treasury.

Published on 09-02-12. Read on here

Laying Down the Law: corruption and governance in the workplace

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During my time as Knight Fellow at the Salzburg Global Seminar this August, I interviewed in-house counsel at Siemens and Raytheon Company who took part in a panel discussion on corruption, governance and democracy. The interviews with Peter Solmssen, general counsel and member of the managing board of Siemens AG and Robert Shanks, the vice president of legal international operations at Raytheon formed the basis for a feature piece in the October issue of The In-House Perspective, the magazine of the IBA corporate counsel forum. Unfortunately it’s subscription only access, but if you’re interested in reading the article, email me to request a PDF version.

The IBA Profile – Azizah al-Hibri

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Here is my latest article published in IBA Global Insight:

The founder and chair of KARAMAH – Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights was appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom in June 2011. Here she shares her views on women’s rights in the Middle East, the developments and implications of the Arab Spring and Western perceptions of the Muslim world since 9/11.

In March this year, over the course of some of the most turbulent days in recent Egyptian history, US-based charitable and education organisation KARAMAH – Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights – conducted three workshops in Cairo. While many other organisations would have shied away from tackling contentious issues on Egyptian soil during this period, KARAMAH took the opportunity to bring together hundreds of scholars and intellectual leaders to discuss Islam, the rule of law and women’s rights in the country’s capital.

Published on 06-10-11. Read on here

Siemens GC Peter Solmssen on governance, corruption and democracy

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Here is my latest piece published in the IBA Global Insight newsfeed:

Since 2006, the exposure of a series of bribery, corruption and price-fixing scandals at Siemens has led to numerous court hearings and multi-million dollar fines. Peter Solmssen, then executive vice-president and general counsel of GE Healthcare, was brought in to ‘clean up’ the company and firmly bring the issue of compliance to the table.

Solmssen’s experience and knowledge of how compliance systems work made him an ideal choice for the rather daunting task of general counsel and member of the managing board of Siemens AG.

Solmssen spoke about his experiences in a plenary session on governance, corruption and democracy at Session 480, ‘The Rule of Law in a Globalized World’, at the Salzburg Global Seminar, in August 2011.

Published on 15-09-11. Read on here

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