Law Firm with Manafort Ties to Register as Foreign Agent

News  |  Jan 18, 2019

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, the law firm that worked with Paul Manafort to promote pro-Russian politicians in Ukraine, has reached a settlement agreement with the Justice Department that requires it to register as a foreign agent and pay a multimillion dollar fine. 

settlement agreement

The Hill:

In connection with special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, Manafort was charged in October 2017 with a slew of crimes stemming from his lobbying on behalf of former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych and his political party. 

Manafort hired Skadden, which is based in New York but has offices internationally, on behalf of the Ukrainian government to produce a 2012 report that defended the Ukrainian government’s imprisonment of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, a political rival of Yanukovych. 

Manafort also orchestrated a media rollout of the report in the United States, which included selectively “leaking” the report to a U.S. media outlet so that the resulting article could “influence reporting globally,” according to a September court filing in Manafort’s case in Washington, D.C. 

Skadden has admitted to acting as an agent of the Ukrainian government by contributing to the public relations campaign in the United States in 2012 and is retroactively registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), a federal law governing foreign lobbying, according to the agreement announced Thursday. 

(...)

A lawyer for Skadden, Alex Van Der Zwaan, pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents in connection with Mueller’s investigation last February, including admitting to lying about his communications with Richard Gates, a former Trump campaign aide and Manafort’s former business partner.

Prosecutors also said that Van Der Zwaan falsely characterized his roll in the rollout of the Tymoshenko report as “passive,” when in fact he aided the public relations campaign by providing an advanced copy of the report to a public relations firm and giving Gates talking points about it. Van Der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in prison back in April, the first sentence handed down in connection with Mueller’s probe.

Manafort’s lobbying work for Yanukovych came under scrutiny during the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, and he was forced to resign as Trump’s campaign chairman in August 2016.

New York Times

The settlement “puts law firms on notice that they can’t hide behind their identity as lawyers. If they are doing lobbying work on behalf of foreign countries, they need to register under FARA,” said Rebecca Roiphe, a professor at New York Law School who specializes in legal ethics. “It also shows that the government will not tolerate false statements by lawyers.”

Read the DOJ's Settlement Agreement

Law firm tied to Manafort's Ukraine lobbying will register as foreign agent (The Hill)

Skadden Arps Agrees to $4.6 Million Settlement in Ukraine Lobbying Case (NYT)