U.S. law firm paid millions to former Ukrainian Prime Minister to avoid lawsuit, says report

An international law firm based in New York paid at least $11 million to avoid being sued by Yulia Tymoshenko, Ukraine's former prime minister, according to The New York Times in a story published on May 10.

The law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom paid the money after Tymoshenko accused the company of writing a report that was used to help justify her imprisonment by a political rival, the Times reported Tymoshenko was imprisoned from 2011-14 on abuse of office charges that the international community widely condemned as politically motivated. In 2012 the New York law firm started representing Viktor Yanukovych’s Moscow-aligned government and produced a report that Yanukovych’s supporters used to condone Tymoshenko’s imprisonment.

She was released after Yanukovych’s government fell in 2014 amid protests against corruption and the government's shift toward Moscow.

Tymoshenko told the Times in a 2018 interview that “it was very painful” to hear about Skadden’s work while she was in prison. She accused the law firm of “whitewashing Yanukovych and his government” for money.