K Street Tracker: a $750,000 False Claims Act retainer and a Turkish shipyard’s Navy push top the new filings

By Staff Reporter

WASHINGTON — The biggest new lobbying checks of the summer did not come from the usual Fortune 500 names. According to the third-quarter reports filed so far, they came from a Florida financial client worried about False Claims Act enforcement, from dissident shareholders of the company building a $7.4 billion Tennessee smelter, and from an Alaska gas venture that wants to buy equipment built for a sanctioned Russian project. On the foreign-agent side, a Turkish shipyard is paying $100,000 a month to court the U.S. Navy.

Third-quarter reports under the Lobbying Disclosure Act are due Tuesday, Oct. 20. The Washington Inquisitor reviewed the 6,298 Q3 registrations, reports and amendments posted through Oct. 16, using a bulk export of Senate lobbying data, and checked each figure cited below against the individual filing. We paired that review with every new registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act listed on the Justice Department’s active-registrant roll since July. Below are the largest retainers, the summer signings already paying six figures, the firms earning the most per client, and the foreign governments, parties and companies that registered agents.

A disclosure shows who is paying and what they say they want. It does not show that anyone has done anything improper or that any client has gotten what it asked for. The leaderboards are partial until the deadline passes.

The biggest outside retainers so far

At the top of the list is a single line of text. Ballard Partners reported $750,000 for the quarter from the Florida law firm Bajo Cohen Agliano, P.A., “on behalf of Health Edge Investment Partners, LLC.” The issue is listed only as “False claims act enforcement.” The report lists no House, Senate or agency contacts. The lobbyists are founder Brian Ballard and Micah Ketchel, whose covered positions include special assistant to the president and senior adviser to the national security adviser in 2025. The False Claims Act is the government’s main civil tool against fraud on federal programs. The filing does not say whether the client faces a case, wants the law changed, or wants enforcement policy changed. The Inquisitor could not immediately identify a False Claims Act case naming Health Edge Investment Partners.

Two lobbying shops, one side of a Korean boardroom fight

Two of the top six retainers trace back to the fight over Korea Zinc. Squire Patton Boggs reported $500,000 from the Seoul law firm Bae, Kim & Lee on behalf of “KCIH & YPC.” The McKeon Group reported $370,000 from the same law firm for “education on proposed smelting plant,” listing the Commerce Department’s Economic Development Administration. Together that is $870,000 in one quarter. Squire’s report lists the issue three times, under manufacturing, trade and economic development, and names the Pentagon, the National Security Council and the State Department.

KCIH is Korea Corporate Investment Holdings, the vehicle Korea Zinc’s largest shareholders, Young Poong and the private-equity firm MBK Partners, set up in their fight with Korea Zinc’s management, The Korea Herald reported when the Squire registration surfaced in February. The faction has criticized the company’s planned smelter in Clarksville, Tenn., which brings in the Pentagon and the Commerce Department as investors, arguing it is meant to bolster chairman Choi Yun-birm’s grip on the company, the Herald reported. KCIH also retained Checkmate Government Relations, UPI reported in May. The stakes went up this month. President Trump praised the project at an Oct. 10 rally in Clarksville, and the Herald reports it includes $210 million in CHIPS Act money from the Commerce Department.

A gas venture that wants Russian hardware

Squire’s $380,000 report for Polar LNG covers “issues related to LNG permitting, exports and project development.” It names seven offices: the Energy Department, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the State and Treasury Departments, the Executive Office of the President, and both chambers of Congress. The lobbyist listed is Adam Suess. The filing gives his covered positions as acting assistant secretary and principal deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals management at the Interior Department from March to October 2025, then senior counselor to the Interior secretary until February 2026.

Treasury matters because of how Polar LNG plans to build. Chief executive Joel Riddle told Semafor in March that the Alaska North Slope project would buy LNG hardware and service ships originally built for Russia’s sanctioned Arctic LNG 2 terminal. He said that would require Treasury permission, which he planned to be “laser-focused” on getting. Semafor reported that one investor is Gentry Beach, a college friend of Donald Trump Jr. The lobbying report does not say what Squire asked any agency for.

A router maker under a ban, and a contractor waiting to be paid

TP-Link pays two layers of Washington help. Ballard’s $300,000 report lists Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, itself a law and lobbying firm, as the client “on behalf of TP-Link Systems,” on “Internet router supply chains.” It contacted the House and the White House Office. The lobbyist listed, Thomas Boodry, discloses service as special assistant to the president and senior director for legislative affairs at the White House and NSC from January to April 2025. The company’s problems have grown. The FCC’s ban on new foreign-made consumer routers took effect this spring, and the administration has granted exemptions to competitors but not to TP-Link. On Oct. 6, four Republican state attorneys general sued it, Ars Technica reported. TP-Link calls the suits “built on false premises.”

Caddell Construction is the largest bill so far from a client signed this summer. Squire registered the Alabama-based builder on Aug. 10, with former Ambassador to Malaysia and Poland Paul Jones as the lobbyist, to engage U.S. officials about “construction and renovation around the world.” For the quarter, Squire reported $340,000. The Q3 issue is listed as “outstanding requests for payment,” and the only agency named is the State Department.

Some of the reports explain almost nothing. VantageKnight LLC, a San Juan, Puerto Rico, firm, filed three reports on Oct. 14: for GesoInvest 2002, S.L.U. and Mercury Capital 2000, S.L.U., both described in disclosures as private-equity firms, and for Northwind Trading Ltd. Each shows $300,000 in income, and each is filed as a no-activity report with no lobbying issues listed. The firm’s August registration for Mercury Capital describes the work as “monitoring western hemisphere policy.”

Summer signings already paying six figures

Matching this summer’s new registrations against third-quarter reports shows which clients put money down quickly.

Changpeng Zhao, the Binance founder whom Mr. Trump pardoned on Oct. 21, 2025, for failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program, hired Tiger Hill Partners in August. Tiger Hill reported $120,000 for the quarter for “advising on requirements and regulatory structures as they relate to digital assets,” according to the filings. The lobbyist, Milan Dalal, lists past jobs as staff director of two Senate Banking subcommittees, senior economic adviser to Sen. Mark Warner, and legislative director to Rep. Gregory Meeks. Legis1 reported the hire in September.

One new client, Rajendra Parikh, states his goal outright. J M Burkman & Associates registered him in July and reported $163,000 for “pursuing a federal pardon.” It listed contacts with the Justice Department, the White House Office and Congress. The filing describes him only as “a private individual” based in New Jersey. The lobbying report lists Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, and under the disclosure law it notes their 2022 Ohio convictions over election robocalls.

Other new signings show where the money is flowing. VOIF Management’s lobbyist at Rubin, Turnbull, Michael Burley, lists service as deputy director of presidential personnel at the White House. Its Q3 report names the White House Office, State and the Education Department on energy and critical-minerals issues. Stonington Global’s Nick Muzin, a former deputy chief of staff to Sen. Ted Cruz, is lobbying for a single family on the national organ-transplant network. The report lists contacts at HHS, CMS and HRSA.

Who earns the most per client

Holland & Knight is still the largest firm by volume. Ballard stands apart on price: its average Q3 report so far is about $122,000, more than twice Holland & Knight’s, and six of the 16 retainers in the first table are Ballard’s. For new business, Continental Strategy led every firm with 27 new registrations posted between July 1 and Sept. 30. BGR and Brownstein had 21 each, and Ballard had 20. In total, firms and in-house lobbying shops posted 751 new registrations in the quarter.

New foreign agents: a Turkish shipyard, Brazil’s export agency, an emirate

FARA registrations require more detail than lobbying reports, including contracts and fees. Our Oct. 16 roundup covered the Yemen, Kirchner, Veliaj and Afghan registrations. Here are other notable new agents since July:

The Spectrum Group, an Alexandria, Va., consultancy, registered for Desan Shipyard of Tuzla, Istanbul. According to its exhibit, the current “Phase II” of the engagement supports Desan’s pursuit of “voyage repair and maintenance, repair and overhaul of U.S. ships in Turkiye, ship module construction, potential partnership with or acquisition of a U.S. ship repair or new-construction shipyard.” The work includes meetings with U.S. Navy officials and help answering Navy requests for proposals. The fee is a fixed $100,000 a month. Spectrum also gets a success fee of 3% of revenue or asset value from any relationship with the Navy, the Department of War or U.S. prime contractors that it introduces, which lasts for 10 years. The firm checked “no” when asked whether its work would include political activities as FARA defines them.

Brazil’s Apex-Brasil signed TSG Advocates under a contract dated July 28, less than two weeks after U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer imposed a 25% tariff on certain Brazilian goods following a yearlong Section 301 investigation. The filing says the policies TSG will try to influence include “U.S. tariff and trade remedy actions (including Section 301 and Section 232 investigations),” with work aimed at the White House, USTR, and the Commerce, State and Agriculture departments. The sectors it names include coffee, beef, granite and auto parts.

The office of the ruler of Ras Al Khaimah, one of the seven emirates, retained a Miami firm at $25,000 a month to run a “Miami-Ras Al Khaimah Strategic Partnership.” The plan includes outreach to state and local officials and a September delegation visit to Miami. The registrant says it “does not presently intend to seek any specific legislative, regulatory, procurement, funding, or other U.S. policy action.” Montenegro’s Democratic People’s Party is buying U.S. outreach at $2,000 a month. The Malaysian Rubber Council’s new U.S. arm says it will track anti-latex legislation in every state. In Ethiopia, the JJ&B filing describes organizing a proposed congressional and diplomatic delegation to support “peacemaking and US-Ethiopia bilateral relations.”

What to watch

The remaining Q3 reports are due Oct. 20, and several are likely to change these rankings. Many of the issues behind the biggest checks are coming to a head. Treasury holds the decision Polar LNG needs. TP-Link still lacks an exemption from the FCC router ban. The Korea Zinc project depends on federal partners and CHIPS money. Apex-Brasil’s tariff fight runs through USTR. Congress returns after the Nov. 3 election to a Dec. 11 funding deadline and the defense bill. Supplemental FARA statements, due every six months, will show whether the new foreign agents met the officials they said they would.

How we did this: The Senate’s lobbying database, lda.gov, was offline for maintenance on Monday morning. Rankings come from a bulk export of Senate LDA filings posted through Oct. 16. Firm, client, income, issue, lobbyist and agency details were checked against each filing’s text, using Open America’s as-filed reproductions where the Senate pages could not be reached. Every filing is linked above. FARA details come from the exhibits the registrants filed with the Justice Department.

Photo: The Hart Senate Office Building, home of the Senate Office of Public Records, which receives lobbying disclosures. Architect of the Capitol (USCapitol) / Wikimedia Commons, public domain (U.S. government work).