PETALING JAYA: The legal team for fugitive financier Jho Low, or Low Taek Jho, has spent more than US$1.1 million (RM4.6 million) over the past seven months to help improve his image, a report citing government filings in the US said.
The New York Times (NYT) said the services include round-the-clock crisis public relations response, efforts to shape internet search results, and a website with international reports and legal filings intended to bolster Low’s side of the story.
Jho Low and his father, Low Hock Peng, are facing charges of embezzling funds from 1MDB.
The Penang-born businessman has maintained his innocence.
The payments to three public relations firms and a digital search firm were disclosed in filings made by the two law firms involved in Jho Low’s defence, Kobre & Kim and Schillings International, the NYT report said.
Jho Low’s lawyers said the money did not come directly from him. However, they did not elaborate about its source.
The report said the campaign by the two high-powered law firms was described in filings submitted last month to the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (Fara).
Fara requires most consultants who lobby or assist with public relations in the US for foreign individuals, companies, governments and political parties to reveal detailed information about their work and payments for it. It is intended to prevent foreign actors from surreptitiously influencing American politics and public policy.
The NYT report cited a filing by Kobre & Kim which indicated that it had disbursed more than US$818,000 to four firms for work done on Jho Low’s behalf.
The majority of that, about US$544,000, went to public relations firm, PRCG Haggerty owned by James Haggerty.
In his Fara filing, Haggerty indicated that his firm was providing “litigation communications” to Kobre & Kim “in order to ensure the client is not prejudged in public in a manner that affects his legal rights in jurisdictions across the globe.”
Its services included engaging “Australian partners” to provide outreach as needed to Asian and Australian news organisations covering the international scandal.
Kobre & Kim also paid two other public relations companies, the PHA Group in London, and in New York, Marathon Strategies.
The NYT report said one of the filings showed that a digital search and analytics firm called Five Blocks, based in New York, has so far been paid US$210,000 to provide “digital reputation management” for Jho Low.
On its site, Five Blocks describes itself as serving “high-profile individuals who want to build, promote, and defend their reputations.”
Schillings said in its filing that it had received US$349,000 as part of its work on the public relations effort for Low. The law firm said its decision to provide “Fara-registrable activities” was made “as a result of privileged and confidential email and oral communications.”
Neither law firm disclosed how much it has earned from providing traditional legal services to Low since the investigation began roughly three years ago.
Jho Low, the alleged mastermind behind the scheme to siphon billions of dollars from the state investment fund, has been charged in absentia in the US.
He is accused of conspiring with Roger Ng, then a Goldman Sachs banker, to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB.
He, Ng and Goldman’s former Southeast Asia chairman Tim Leissner are the first individuals to be charged in the US in relation to the 1MDB scandal. - FMT
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