Ukrainian billionaire Dmytro Firtash hired U.S. lobbyist firm, Lanny J. Davis & Associates, in an effort to have his legal representatives in the U.S. as well as to correct his media record, according to the lobbyist’s statement registered at the U.S. Department of Justice on June 24.
http://www.fara.gov/docs/6230-Exhibit-AB-20140624-1.pdf
Group DF, Firtash’s parent company that
unites his various businesses, did not respond to the Kyiv Post’s emailed
questions.
According to the document, Firtash and the
company reached agreement in late April after being arrested in Austria in
March and shortly afterwards released on travel ban. The businessman was
arrested at the request of the FBI on suspicion of involvement in an organized
criminal group. The investigation, started in 2006, progressed with an arrest
warrant issued by a U.S. district court this year. He is currently in Vienna
challenging his extradition to the U.S. in an Austrian court and affirms he is innocent of all charges.
Lanny J. Davis & Associates will provide
to Firtash “legal representation on ongoing matters,” “including strategies and
services in support of Mr. Firtash’s legal and litigation positions,” reads the
registration file. These may also include “correcting the record in media and
elsewhere from distortions and inaccuracies” and advising “to assist in legal
defense and in correcting the public record.”
The payment for the services will be done
through Group DF. The services will cost Group DF $60,000 per month.
In late April, Group DF wired Lanny J.
Davis & Associates almost $180,000 in advance payments and in legal fees
for its representation, according to the registration statement. http://www.fara.gov/docs/6230-Registration-Statement-20140624-1.pdf
Lanny J. Davis also recommended Firtash to hire
Levick Strategic Communications PR firm for $25,000 a month and Firtash did.
According to the document http://www.fara.gov/docs/6230-Registration-Statement-20140624-1.pdf,
the PR firm is in charge of preparing and disseminating op-ed pieces in English
to newspaper and editors.
Major interests of Firtash’s Group DF are
in fertilizer, titanium, gas and banking sectors. Other areas of the group’s
operation include real estate, media, agribusiness, soda ash production and
energy infrastructure.
Firtash also prominently featured in the
WikiLeaks whistleblower website. According to U.S. State Department cables
posted on the WikiLeaks website, Firtash acknowledged to a top American
diplomat “that he needed, and received, permission from (Semyon) Mogilevich
(Russian mafia mob wanted by the FBI) when he established various businesses,
but he denied any close relationship to him.”
He is also widely known as a co-owner
jointly with Russia’s Gazprom of a controversial gas trader RusUkrEnergo, which
supplied natural gas from Russia to Ukraine in 2006-2009. Firtash has always
fiercely denied any wrongdoing.
Kyiv
Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]
