Cravath discloses work for Ukrainian company that paid Hunter Biden to be board member
Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden, boards Air Force One with the president in February 2023 at the Hancock Field Air National Guard Base in Syracuse, New York. Photo by Patrick Semansky/The Associated Press.
Cravath, Swaine & Moore has filed a U.S. Department of Justice disclosure indicating that it previously lobbied on behalf of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings and its owner, Ukrainian businessman Mykola Zlochevsky.
Cravath disclosed that it earned about $350,000 from Burisma and Zlochevsky for work done between March 2016 and August 2017, Bloomberg Law reports.
Cravath filed the retroactive disclosure under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, according to Bloomberg Law, Law.com and Reuters.
President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden was a paid board member of Burisma between 2014 and 2019. Congressional Republicans have said they want to investigate whether the elder Biden helped aided Burisma on behalf of his son. Hunter Biden’s annual starting salary was $1 million, although the amount was reduced to $500,000 in March 2017, according to a tax indictment of Hunter Biden cited by the BBC.
Cravath said in a statement it filed the disclosure “after discussions with the Department of Justice regarding FARA’s scope.” The disclosures, which make no mention of Hunter Biden, were filed by Cravath and law firm partner John Buretta.
Buretta had been a deputy assistant attorney general during the Obama administration, according to Bloomberg Law.
Cravath’s work for Burisma included meeting with U.S. officials “to present facts relevant to potential U.S. and Ukrainian investigations,” the filing said.
Cravath isn’t the first firm to file a retroactive disclosure under the FARA. Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom registered retroactively for its work for the Ukrainian government in 2019 and agreed to pay more than $4.6 million to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, which was the amount of money that the firm received for the Ukraine work.
