New York company paid $ 11 million to resolve the conflict in Ukraine

Ex-Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko accused the New York company of lobbying the interests of ex-president Viktor Yanukovych and promoting its political persecution. To resolve the conflict, the American company paid $ 11 million. This is reported by the newspaper. The New York Times.

“Dirty contract”

New York-based law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom paid $ 11 million to avoid a lawsuit filed by former Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. The politician accused the company of complicity in its political persecution.

It is reported that the company acted in the interests of Viktor Yanukovych, who at that time was the president of Ukraine. In particular, she created a report that was used to justify the ex-president’s actions related to Tymoshenko’s imprisonment. Since 2011, the politician has been in prison for abuse of power, which the international community has widely condemned as politically motivated.

After Yanukovych stepped down from power in 2014 amid street protests against corruption in the country and Ukraine’s movement toward Moscow, Tymoshenko was released. She began to plan retaliation against Yanukovych and those who, in her opinion, allowed her to be jailed, including Skadden.

In an interview with The New York Times in Washington in December 2018, Tymoshenko recalled that it was “very painful” to learn about Skadden’s work, “when I was in prison and watched it from a solitary confinement.”

She also accused Skadden’s lawyers of “bleaching Yanukovych and his government” in exchange for money, and added: “It’s a pity that such a well-known company as Skadden even considered taking the case on themselves. This is a dirty, dirty, dirty contract. ”

After the interview, she and her lawyer Sergei Vlasenko, who also argued that the Yanukovych government treated him unfairly, turned to the law firm Reid Collins & Tsai. They tasked the latter with investigating the possibility of filing a lawsuit against Skadden for her actions.

Conflict Resolution

Skadden paid more than $ 11 million to settle the case even before the lawsuit was filed, according to people familiar with the settlement. Apparently, the funds from the settlement were transferred to Tymoshenko and Vlasenko through Reed Collins.

This agreement is reflected in the documents submitted by Tymoshenko and Vlasenko to the Ukrainian government, which confirm: each of them received about 5,5 million dollars. However, the records do not mention Skadden.

In his materials, Vlasenko described money as “foreign income”. Tymoshenko in her statement called this amount “compensation for the damage caused by the political repressions of 2011-2014, which was received in the United States at the pre-trial settlement stage”.

Payments came after Skadden last year paid $ 4,6 million to settle an investigation by the Department of Justice on whether his work for the Yanukovych’s government violates foreign lobbying laws.

Subsequently, the firm, in materials filed with the Department of Justice, found that for its work it was paid a total of more than $ 5,2 million: $ 4,15 million came from the Ukrainian oligarch and his American lobbyist, and $ 1,1 million - from the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine. According to the newspaper, in 2017 Skadden returned 567 thousand dollars to the Ukrainian government.

By the way, one of the lawyers who helped in the preparation of the report, Alex van der Zvaan admitted that he lied to federal investigators that year about his reports regarding the company's work for the Yanukovych government.

Skadden lead lawyer Gregory B. Craig, a former adviser to President Barack Obama at the White House, was acquitted last year on a felony charge. He was accused of lying to the federal authorities about work. And Paul Manafort, who served as political adviser to Yanukovych, is serving 7,5 years in prison for financial and lobbying violations related to his work for Yanukovych.

Skadden Actions

Skadden continued to publicly defend its work in Ukraine. The company noted that their report only gave an independent assessment, which did not exempt Yanukovych from liability for offenses.

The company also said that the report concluded that Tymoshenko “did not provide concrete evidence of political motivation, which would be enough to cancel her conviction according to American standards.” This, according to the company, was used by the Yanukovych’s government to characterize Tymoshenko’s allegations that the prosecution was politically motivated.

However, the fact that the conflict has been resolved indicates that the company does not seek to continue to publicly defend its report or work in Ukraine.

“There will be no detailed information”

Skadden did not respond to numerous requests for comment.

Vlasenko and Collins also did not respond to similar requests.

A spokeswoman for Yulia Tymoshenko refused to answer questions about the settlement, but pointed to a statement that the former prime minister posted on Facebook. In her post, the politician wrote that the money came "from a subject in the United States at the stage of pre-trial settlement." Tymoshenko also announced the settlement as “yet another proof that my imprisonment in 2011-2014 was a political retaliation against me.” She added that “there will be no more details” due to “legal restrictions in this case.” Based on this, it can be assumed that a confidentiality clause may apply to the agreement.

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Reed Collins is known for leading malpractice cases against large law and accounting firms in unforeseen circumstances. For this, he is paid a certain percentage of the settlements received from these firms, often before filing claims.

The lawsuit of Tymoshenko and Vlasenko against Skadden is not registered. However, in 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Tymoshenko’s arrest and detention in the middle of a trial of abuse of power in 2011 were unlawful, unsubstantiated and politically motivated. This decision could open the door for a lawsuit against Skadden under the Aliens Delicate Laws Act of 1789. This law allows foreign nationals to sue US federal courts for violations of international law or American treaties.