Do you still remember the “Daimler case”? A quick reminder: On April 5, 2010, we organized a couple thousand petitions to the prosecutor’s office and to the president, demanding an investigation into the bribery of Russian officials that Daimler itself admitted to during the U.S. Department of Justice investigation. At first, the “law enforcement” authorities, true to form, tried to fob us off and close the case. However, after a campaign of mass complaints and a huge number of media reports, that became difficult, and on September 27, 2010, a criminal case was finally opened under the article for “fraud.” After that, the Investigative Committee went to ground and stopped giving us any information about the case. It should be understood that although we filed complaints, our procedural status is basically “you are nobody here”: after all, it was not a specific person who was robbed, but the Russian federal budget — that is, all citizens at once. And we are not allowed to fight for the budget; there are special official defenders in uniform for that — meaning, precisely the people who were taking bribes from Daimler. The only way to pry out at least some information about what was going on was through a parliamentary inquiry. Deputy Petrov submitted one, and thanks to him for that. Yesterday, I was sent a copy of the reply:
All in all, for a case supposedly under the supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office, one might have expected a more energetic investigation. It has been nearly two years since the inquiry began, and they still have not brought charges against anyone. Well, at least there are suspects. What is interesting is something else: it is now finally clear that the proceedings in the “Daimler case” consist of two criminal cases — the same two we had heard about back in November 2010. There is nothing beyond that. One case concerns bribes in the Federal Protective Service (FSO), the other bribes in the Interior Ministry (MVD). Meanwhile, not only international Daimler but Daimler’s Russian branch officially admitted (as far back as April 2, 2010) that it paid bribes to: - the Federal Protective Service (FSO) - the Interior Ministry (MVD) - the Defense Ministry - Moscow City Hall - Ufa City Hall - Novy Urengoy City Hall
So where, if you please, is the investigation into the other episodes besides the MVD and the FSO? It looks rather bad: the Defense Ministry, Moscow, Ufa, and Novy Urengoy have all been neglected. They should feel offended. We are going to file a complaint about that now. And as for the Investigative Committee’s Main Investigative Directorate, we wish them energy in their work in the New Year. There is a feeling that the investigators, assuming everyone has forgotten about the case, want to quietly drag things out until the statute of limitations expires (10 years for this offense. As the table shows, for the 2001–2003 episodes, the expiration of the statute of limitations is very much a live issue). We have not forgotten. We wrote it down.