Business As Usual

You might think the arrest of Russia's richest man — and the seizure of some $13 billion of his company's stock — would have a chilling effect on business investment in the country. But you'd be wrong. When Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Rome last week for a European Union summit, Fiat used the occasion to sign a deal with a Russian car distributor and announce that it was thinking about building an assembly plant in Russia. Oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, charged with tax evasion and other crimes, awaits trial in a Moscow jail, and his assets in Yukos — the firm...