Peters & Peters is proud to have sponsored the Sergei Magnitsky Human Rights Awards, which took place on 16 November 2015 in honour of Russian anti-corruption lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, on the sixth anniversary of his death.

The Awards were hosted by Hermitage Capital Management, a victim of ‘corporate raiding’ in the Russian Federation. Sergei Magnitsky, the company’s lawyer, was imprisoned by the Russian authorities during his investigation of the case, and died as a result of his treatment in custody.

Peters & Peters has acted for Hermitage, and for its CEO Bill Browder, for the best part of a decade, primarily in defeating requests to the UK by the Russian government for mutual legal assistance, on issues concerning possible extradition proceedings, and INTERPOL.

In May 2013, INTERPOL announced its decision not to issue any Red Notice in Bill’s case, as INTERPOL agreed that it was politically motivated. INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald Noble discussed the case in a Telegraph opinion editorial. The firm also represented Hermitage at the outset of the inquest into the death of Alexander Perepilichny.

Jasvinder Nakhwal, Partner, Business Crime, said: “It was an honour for Peters & Peters to support such an important and ground breaking event, which celebrated leading figures in the fight against human rights abuses worldwide.”

The winners of the awards are:

1) Boris Nemtsov (posthu­mously and accepted by his daugh­ter Zhanna Nemtsova), Russ­ian oppo­si­tion leader (Spe­cial Award for Cam­paign­ing for Democ­racy)

2) Guy Ver­hof­s­tadt, Mem­ber of Euro­pean Par­lia­ment (Cam­paign­ing Euro­pean Politi­cian Award)

3) Jim McGov­ern, U.S. Con­gress­man (Cam­paign­ing US Politi­cian Award)

4) The Organ­ised Crime and Cor­rup­tion Report­ing Project, an anti-corruption and inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ism NGO (Out­stand­ing Inves­tiga­tive Jour­nal­ism Award, accepted by Paul Radu and Roman Anin)

5) Andrew Rettman, Euro­pean jour­nal­ist with EU Observer (Out­stand­ing Euro­pean Cov­er­age of Mag­nit­sky Case Award)

6) James O’Brien, British jour­nal­ist, tele­vi­sion and radio pre­sen­ter, and a show host on LBC talk sta­tion (Out­stand­ing British Cov­er­age of Mag­nit­sky Case Award)

7) Geof­frey Robert­son QC, inter­na­tional lawyer (Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion to Human Rights Law Award)

8) The Oslo Free­dom Forum, a human rights con­fer­ence plat­form (Best Human Rights NGO Award, accepted by Thor Halvorssen)

9) The Hon. Irwin Cotler, for­mer Attor­ney Gen­eral and Jus­tice Min­is­ter of Canada (Out­stand­ing Con­tri­bu­tion to Global Mag­nit­sky Cam­paign)

Jasvinder Nakhwal, Partner in the Business Crime Department, acts in this case, and is assisted by Rebecca Meads, Associate, and Peter FitzGerald, Associate. Contact jnakhwal@petersandpeters.com for further information.