Dutch electronics maker Philips is reviewing its trade with Russia for violation of the U.S. Magnitsky Act, the Financial Times reported.
The internal inquiry is linked to an October complaint by Hermitage Capital Fund founder William Browder to the U. S. Treasury, which accused the U.S. branch of Philips that handles medical equipment of selling to a company which until recently was headed by Artyom Kuznetsov, an Interior Ministry investigator implicated in the death of lawyer Sergei Magnitsky in pretrial detention in Moscow in 2009.
Kuznetsov is on the list of 18 Russian nationals who were banned in April from traveling to or having bank accounts in the U.S. under the Magnitsky Act, which was passed by the Senate in December 2012 and imposes sanctions on Russian officials suspected of human rights violations.
Magnitsky was imprisoned on tax evasion charges in 2008 soon after accusing Russian officials of stealing $230 million in state funds.
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