Our firm works for Mr Frank Giustra and on his behalf, we take issue with your recent coverage of the Vanity Fair article on former President Clinton, which includes references to Mr Giustra.

You are correct in stating that Vanity Fair’s recent coverage of Bill Clinton “rehashes” prior negative coverage of Frank Giustra. You did not, however, mention that Vanity Fair’s description of Frank Giustra relies exclusively on an extremely erroneous and innuendo-filled description of Mr. Giustra and his relationship with Former President Bill Clinton that comes from a many months old and inaccurate New York Times article.

Vanity Fair never bothered to directly contact Frank Giustra or make any effort to check the ample public information available about Frank Giustra that has appeared subsequent to the New York Times article for accuracy.

Had Vanity Fair done some basic journalistic due diligence, the publication would have been aware of the key facts:

§ The mining agreements Frank Giustra’s company reached in Kazakhstan had nothing to do with Mr. Giustra’s relationship with Former President Clinton. As Mr. Giustra has publicly stated multiple times, these mining agreements were concluded after many months of negotiations that were ongoing well before Bill Clinton’s visit to the country, were conducted with private companies — not the Kazakhstan government — and involved market value payment for the assets involved.

§ Frank Giustra has never needed or used Bill Clinton to assist him with his business transactions. There is more than ample information in the public domain which demonstrates that Mr. Giustra had a 25-year track record of conducting highly successful international business transactions long before he ever even met Former President Clinton. To suggest that Frank Giustra somehow needed Bill Clinton to “lend him credibility” in business transactions is completely off-base.

§ Where Bill Clinton has been enormously helpful to Frank Giustra has been in helping Mr. Giustra globalize his longstanding philanthropic interests. The relationship between Frank Giustra and Former President Clinton is based solely on their shared global philanthropic interests, nothing more and nothing less. Importantly, Frank Giustra and Former President Clinton have communicated, with detailed specificity to the public, their shared charitable causes, the amounts contributed by Mr. Giustra and how they will be deployed in support of global AIDS work as well as poverty alleviation and economic sustainability in developing world countries.

Norm Stowe
Managing Partner, Pace Group