Roger Smith rounds up recent human rights developments
Mrs Justice Gloster, by all accounts, did rather well in managing the trial between Boris Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich. She clearly contributed to the veneer of civility and principle that covered actions in Russia at a time when it went by the name of the “Wild East”. Prudently, she noted in her judgment that she was “not convinced that the court has been presented with the full picture of the business arrangements” between the two men. She felt no need to know more than she was told of an arrangement that she agreed “might have caused Mr Berezovsky [and another partner] to have regarded themselves, in the vernacular, as having, or being entitled to ‘a piece of the Sibneft action’ or to have ‘owned’ Mr Abramovich. That, in a very loose sense, was the nature of the deal with Mr Abramovich, and the nature of many payments under so-called patronage or ‘protection’ arrangements. But that does not translate into the complicated contractual agreements for which Mr Berezovsky contended”.
No jurisdictional issue
The reputational value
