Shock to the economy

The head of the Accounts Chamber, Alexei Kudrin, called the arrest of Baring Vostok founder Michael Calvey a “shock for the economy”

Since the beginning of 2019, capital outflow from Russia has doubled and has already reached $40 billion, said the head of the Accounts Chamber, Alexei Kudrin, at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. According to him, the situation with investor Michael Calvey is a “shock for the economy”, which is fraught with further capital outflow.

“On the one hand, they say that he has a high reputation, on the other hand, for some reason they are keeping him under arrest, while an objective process can calmly proceed,” Interfax quotes Kudrin.

There are no stable rules in Russia, no stability in arbitration, Kudrin noted, Vedomosti reports. According to him, the president should pay attention to the courts: “Ensuring the independence of the courts and human resources. All this is discussed, but no corrective measures are taken.”

“The most popular answer from business is how to fix the business climate? This is an improvement in the work of law enforcement agencies and courts,” Kudrin said.

Kudrin recalled in his speech Alexander Pushkin’s novel “Dubrovsky”: the wealthy landowner Troekurov bribes the court and “commits a raider seizure” of Andrei Dubrovsky’s estate. This is happening now, so business does not trust the judicial system. According to Kudrin, until a turning point occurs, investments in the economy will not flow. Therefore, in his opinion, the KPIs of law enforcement agencies should be formulated so that they share responsibility for economic growth.

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Anton Siluanov agreed with Kudrin, but noted that we need to talk not specifically about Calvey, but “about the situation as a whole”: “Yes, Calvey is a foreign investor, but we pay too much attention to this, we need to look at it as a whole on the system."

In his opinion, in Russia there is a need for more understandable and predictable work of the authorities that provide business protection: “What about the incident with Calvey? There are similar incidents in the West. The whole problem needs to be addressed rather than looking at one incident. This is the problem. And together with Alexey Leonidovich we will prepare a set of proposals.”

Michael Calvey is under house arrest; he and other defendants in the case are accused of stealing 2.5 billion rubles from Vostochny Bank. Calvey previously asked the investigation to allow him to go to SPIEF.