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Belgrade Denies Government Hired Law Firm to Lobby in the USA

Politiko 3 Prill 2019, 15:13

Belgrade Denies Government Hired Law Firm to Lobby in the USA

Serbian authorities denied on Tuesday that they hired a law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP to lobby for it in Washington, as reported by Voice of America (VOA) on its site in the Serbian language.

According to the VOA report, in the document submitted to the the US Department of Justice on 27 March 2019 it was stated that the firm will lobby for Serbia “with all the US-based interested parties (including also the officials of the US government) concerning certain matters of regional cooperation which encompass the foreign client (Serbia) and Kosovo”.

In the document which has been submitted to the US Department of Justice there is also included the contract between Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP and the office of the state Attorney General, issued on 20 March to the address of Olivera Stanimirovic, who is named as the official of the Serbian government who will be the primary contact with the lobbying firm.

In one part of the contract, it is stated that this firm has been representing Serbia since November 2013, along with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Slovenia and Montenegro, and the National Bank of Serbia concerning the liquidation of the New York branch offices of the today non-existent Beogradska Bank and Jugobanka.

The document does not state how much the Serbian government will be paying for the firm’s services, VOA report said.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday that no contract has been signed on lobbying for the interests of Serbia in the USA, adding that Belgrade was talking about engaging a law firm only in the event that the arbitration proceedings are opened concerning the violation of the CEFTA agreement on the part of Kosovo, which had last year introduced 100% taxes on goods from Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

“There is no contract on lobbying. They have discussed whether we want to set in motion arbitration procedures against Pristina for introducing tariffs to Serbia. And because of this, they chose a firm whose headquarters are in Brussels and Paris and not Washington. This has nothing to do with lobbying in Washington. The talks have only begun, there is no agreement”, Vucic told Prva TV.

To hire a law firm for the purpose of the arbitration would otherwise “be normal if we go for such a procedure”, he added.

“However, I do not know whether the government will decide in favor of this or not”, Vucic said.

On Tuesday, the Serbian government also unofficially denied that it had engaged Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP to lobby in Washington.

From its sources in the government, Tanjug received the same claim that Vucic made - that there are only ongoing talks with that firm on a possible representation of Serbia in case that Belgrade opens an arbitration procedure against Kosovo for the violation of the CEFTA agreement.