Last night I read these comments made by the Western banker Hans-Jörg Rudloff, the Chairman of Barclay’s Capital and a board member of Rosneft.  Most of the day, at least when I wasn’t fixing my crashing computer, I was digging around for some insight to add.  Rather than share shoddy/hasty intel, I thought I would just point to these important statements for you to make up your own minds.  It’s good to know that despite getting into bed with a Russian state-owned company, the occasional banker can still go rogue and say what everyone else knows but is too afraid to talk about.

If Rudloff is even complaining about it, my guess would be that Russia’s billionaire businessmen are likely to never pay back their foreign creditors, which will severely choke up credit lines, damage the country’s economic recovery, and hurt working consumers.  Once again, we see how high the price can be of having poor judicial independence, as the laughable bankruptcy courts lead the wealthy to believe that foreign debt need not be honored.

From the Financial Times:

“The government did everything possible to extend help [to big Russian private companies].

“But all these efforts are being undermined and scratched out by the unconstructive behaviour of these owners,” Mr Rudloff said at a seminar.