Writing at Time Magazine, Carl Schreck, a journalist we usually see writing at the National, has a piece on the proliferation of corporate raiding by government agencies and the private groups which control them – filling the jails with businessmen who blow the whistle on official abuses.

There are no reliable statistics on the number of corporate raider attacks carried out each year, although media reports have put the number as high as 70,000. But the impact of the criminal practice on the economy is quite clear — business lobbyists and corruption experts say it is paralyzing small- and mid-sized businesses, as well as scaring off foreign investment. “If an Italian is doing business here and is targeted in a raider attack, he’s going to tell his countrymen,” says Alexander Brechalov, vice president of Opora, a Russian lobbying group for small businesses. “Who is going to want to come to Russia after hearing that? It’s an epidemic that needs to be contained.”