KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 14): The legal team supporting Malaysian financier Low Taek Jho or Jho Low has spent more than US$1.1 million over the past seven months to help improve his reputation, The New York Times (NYT) reported citing government filings.

These sophisticated services include round-the-clock crisis public relations (PR) response, efforts to shape internet search results, and a website with international reports and legal filings intended to bolster his side of story, it added.

The NYT report today said the filings, submitted last month to the US Department of Justice (DoJ) under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), provide a glimpse inside a growing industry called litigation communications, which caters to wealthy people and corporations ensnared in international legal fights. The filings themselves are something of a rarity, it said, and a suggestion that such crisis managers are growing cautious as federal prosecutors cast a critical eye on foreign lobbying and influence campaigns.

It was reported that the owner of one PR firm hired by Low’s legal team, James Haggerty, said in one filing that he believed all of his work fell within the litigation exemption to FARA. But Haggerty, who is also a lawyer, wrote that he registered anyway, "given the ambiguity in the law and differing interpretations".

NYT said the payments, made to three PR firms and a digital search firm, were disclosed in FARA filings by the two law firms involved in Low’s defence — Kobre & Kim and Schillings International. "The lawyers said the money did not come directly from Low, though they did not provide specifics about its source."

According to NYT, Kobre & Kim, in its filing, indicated that it had disbursed more than US$818,000 to four firms for work on Low’s behalf. The majority of that — roughly US$544,000 — went to Haggerty’s PR firm, PRCG Haggerty.

Kobre & Kim has also paid two other public relations companies, the PHA Group in London, and in New York, Marathon Strategies, which was founded by the longtime Democratic campaign operative Phil Singer.

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 Low, one filing said.

Haggerty, who is serving as the main spokesman for the legal team, told NYT that there was nothing wrong with a person under investigation taking aggressive steps to clear his name.

“I reject the notion that only large, multinational banks and sovereign wealth funds are allowed a defense, either in court or in the public arena,” Haggerty said in the report.

On Nov 1, Low together with two former Goldman Sachs bankers were charged by the DoJ over the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal. Former banker Tim Leissner pleaded guilty and agreed to pay US$43.7 million in restitution of ill-gotten gains, while Roger Ng Chong Hwa has been arrested in Malaysia. Low has so far remained at large.