[00:00:00] Speaker 04:
May it please the court.

[00:00:02] Speaker 04:
The dominant issue in this appeal is whether the defendant's contacts... Did you learn... Sorry?

[00:00:10] Speaker 05:
...that your original client was deceased?

[00:00:15] Speaker 04:
She was not my client, Your Honor.

[00:00:16] Speaker 04:
I'm sorry.

[00:00:19] Speaker 04:
We had no inkling until the brief was filed, the answering brief was filed.

[00:00:24] Speaker 05:
Okay.

[00:00:25] Speaker 05:
All right.

[00:00:26] Speaker 05:
Thank you.

[00:00:27] Speaker 05:
Go ahead.

[00:00:29] Speaker 04:
So the key issue is whether the defendant's contacts with the forum satisfy the arise out of or relate to aspect of the three part test that the Ninth Circuit has established for specific jurisdiction.

[00:00:46] Speaker 04:
And in this case, we're following the court's rejection of the proximate cause rationale in the shoot case in favor of the but for test.

[00:00:59] Speaker 04:
And the but-for test simply requires that the forum contacts be an event without which the dispute would not arise.

[00:01:09] Speaker 04:
And that test is easily met here because there is a dispute about the ownership of specific assets that were acquired by the defendant's agent in the forum.

[00:01:23] Speaker 02:
But the alleged transfer of those assets

[00:01:28] Speaker 02:
happened in Hong Kong and Taiwan, didn't it?

[00:01:30] Speaker 04:
There really wasn't a transfer, Your Honor, as far as everything is argued by the parties.

[00:01:38] Speaker 04:
David Chung's position is that he had nothing to do with the assets, that they belonged to his mother, and that the money that was placed in trust back then was not transferred by him.

[00:01:52] Speaker 04:
Our view

[00:01:54] Speaker 04:
is that there never was a transfer, certainly not of the beneficial interest in the assets.

[00:02:02] Speaker 04:
And the other important point about that, Judge Thomas, is that when those events occurred back in Hong Kong, there was no dispute.

[00:02:13] Speaker 04:
At that point, David Chung had not articulated a claim that the assets were not accessible

[00:02:23] Speaker 04:
Elizabeth Chung so no dispute arose at that time no dispute was inevitable it was only years later When Mr.. Chung repurposed his what was then a tax scheme that a dispute arose so counsel Let me just make sure I'm understanding this correctly is it your position or maybe it's not but that the maple family trust which started in 2004 and

[00:02:48] Speaker 01:
is where they first started hiding these marital assets.

[00:02:53] Speaker 01:
And then from there, all of the transfers come from that trust?

[00:02:58] Speaker 04:
That's right, Your Honor.

[00:03:00] Speaker 04:
The original trust was created in 2004.

[00:03:03] Speaker 05:
It was terminated... In Hong Kong, yes.

[00:03:07] Speaker 04:
Actually, it was in...

[00:03:10] Speaker 04:
The Cayman Islands.

[00:03:11] Speaker 05:
Okay, Cayman Islands.

[00:03:12] Speaker 04:
Not California.

[00:03:14] Speaker 04:
Not when that trust was created, no.

[00:03:16] Speaker 05:
But that's the event that triggered everything that followed, yes?

[00:03:22] Speaker 04:
That is an event that did lead to the things that followed, but the but-for test doesn't look back to a decisive event, an original event.

[00:03:37] Speaker 04:
All that matters under the but-for test

[00:03:40] Speaker 04:
is that there's a connection between the forum contacts and the claim, and that's true here.

[00:03:46] Speaker 04:
The assets in dispute today did not exist back then.

[00:03:52] Speaker 04:
They were purchased in 2016, much, much later.

[00:03:58] Speaker 04:
And the dispute didn't arise until well into the dissolution proceeding, which was initiated in early 2019.

[00:04:08] Speaker 01:
Council, if we're trying to figure out who owns the trust, if the court is required to figure out, OK, this trust asset belongs to, and I apologize for using the first names, but since the last name's the same, this one belongs to Elizabeth, this one belongs to David, how are we to do that?

[00:04:24] Speaker 01:
Do we need to trace the trust assets back to their origin?

[00:04:28] Speaker 01:
In which case would it not be the 2004 Maple Trust?

[00:04:31] Speaker 04:
So it is necessary to trace back to the origin.

[00:04:36] Speaker 04:
But based on the trial that we just had,

[00:04:38] Speaker 04:
in the dissolution proceeding, that's not a difficult task.

[00:04:42] Speaker 04:
The evidence in this case will show, as it did in that case, that it's really undisputed about the tracing.

[00:04:51] Speaker 04:
The original assets are agreed by all to relate back to those original assets.

[00:05:00] Speaker 01:
So to the 2004 maple trust, the assets that made up that maple trust?

[00:05:06] Speaker 04:
That's right.

[00:05:08] Speaker 04:
Specifically, it was $5 million.

[00:05:10] Speaker 04:
And the evidence that was presented in the dissolution trial is that everything does relate back to that.

[00:05:19] Speaker 05:
So it's true that... The purpose of creating the original trust, as I understand your position, was to evade taxes.

[00:05:31] Speaker 04:
That's right, Judge Rakoff.

[00:05:33] Speaker 05:
And that was known to your client as well?

[00:05:35] Speaker 05:
It was.

[00:05:36] Speaker 05:
So I'm not sure whether or not this is relevant, but certainly she has unclean hands, yes?

[00:05:54] Speaker 05:
She said, in effect,

[00:05:58] Speaker 05:
to her husband, let's hide our assets so we don't have to pay tax.

[00:06:04] Speaker 04:
She did not, Your Honor.

[00:06:05] Speaker 04:
The evidence is that when the idea was initiated by the husband, she objected to it.

[00:06:15] Speaker 04:
She said it's not the right thing to do.

[00:06:18] Speaker 04:
She said it's not a good practical thing to do.

[00:06:21] Speaker 04:
She was not, quote unquote, in on it at that point.

[00:06:26] Speaker 05:
She knew about it.

[00:06:27] Speaker 05:
She did.

[00:06:30] Speaker 05:
Did she have to sign any of the documents?

[00:06:32] Speaker 04:
No.

[00:06:33] Speaker 04:
She did not because at that point, the trusts were created in the name of the husband's mother, so it had no connection.

[00:06:42] Speaker 04:
There was no activity that involved my client.

[00:06:48] Speaker 04:
She did not have to do anything, and she didn't.

[00:06:51] Speaker 04:
And she did protest.

[00:06:55] Speaker 04:
But on this question about things tracing back,

[00:06:59] Speaker 04:
That's not the determinative issue because the due process standard, the three-part test, looks to the connection to the forum and whether the claim arises out of those contacts.

[00:07:13] Speaker 04:
In this case, it isn't disputed that David Chung directed the purchase of the assets in 2016.

[00:07:22] Speaker 04:
There's no disagreement about that.

[00:07:23] Speaker 04:
There's also no disagreement.

[00:07:26] Speaker 04:
that Mr. Chung was appointed investment advisor.

[00:07:30] Speaker 04:
The defendants don't appear to be in sync as to who made the appointment.

[00:07:35] Speaker 04:
But no matter how it's looked at, we have prima facie proof pointing in either direction.

[00:07:42] Speaker 04:
We say that the trust instrument gives the power to the trustee.

[00:07:48] Speaker 04:
We also note that Mr. Chung's mother made the request

[00:07:56] Speaker 04:
ask the trustee to exercise that power.

[00:07:59] Speaker 04:
So one way or the other, there's a purposeful act by the defendant directed toward the forum in the form of the appointment of a California agent.

[00:08:11] Speaker 04:
And there really isn't a doubt about his role in causing this.

[00:08:17] Speaker 04:
So the question that's been raised

[00:08:20] Speaker 01:
Council, do we care at all about what the mother's contacts were in California?

[00:08:26] Speaker 01:
Does that even come into play?

[00:08:27] Speaker 04:
It does because she's one of the defendants.

[00:08:30] Speaker 01:
Okay, so given that she only visited California once, she never personally conducted any business or executed any contracts or owned property in California, what do we look at for her specifically?

[00:08:46] Speaker 04:
For her specifically, we look to the letter of request

[00:08:50] Speaker 04:
by which she requested that her son, David Chung, be appointed investment advisor.

[00:08:57] Speaker 02:
But she didn't have the power to command his appointment.

[00:09:00] Speaker 02:
Is that correct?

[00:09:02] Speaker 04:
We say she did not.

[00:09:03] Speaker 04:
But InterTrust claims that she actually made the appointment.

[00:09:07] Speaker 04:
So there's a dispute between the parties as to what happened.

[00:09:11] Speaker 04:
We think the trust instrument gives the power to the trustee and only the trustee.

[00:09:17] Speaker 04:
InterTrust claims that it was

[00:09:20] Speaker 04:
Chung Ping Chi Mei, the mother, who actually made the appointment.

[00:09:24] Speaker 04:
The letter doesn't purport to do that, but the letter is still important because she was taking action to cause that appointment to be made.

[00:09:36] Speaker 04:
She was exercising the level of authority that she had, which was one of the influence, to cause the appointment of David Chung as investment advisor.

[00:09:48] Speaker 04:
But that's her role as far as this goes.

[00:09:51] Speaker 04:
Now beyond that?

[00:09:54] Speaker 05:
So assuming for the sake of argument that they're right and she had the power to do it, which I know you dispute, wouldn't that actually cut in your favor?

[00:10:09] Speaker 04:
It would, as to her.

[00:10:11] Speaker 04:
Against us, as to InterTrust, perhaps, but most definitely in our favor as to her.

[00:10:17] Speaker 04:
That's why I think that no matter how it's looked at, we have prima facie proof that at a minimum meets the standard and has to be considered.

[00:10:28] Speaker 04:
Because however you look at it, there's a purposeful act by the defendant to appoint a California agent.

[00:10:36] Speaker 04:
And there's a clear connection between the resulting forum contacts and the dispute.

[00:10:44] Speaker 01:
Does it make a difference that she asked and not ordered it?

[00:10:49] Speaker 04:
So I don't think it makes a difference at this point, Your Honor.

[00:10:52] Speaker 04:
But in the end, it's possible that it could.

[00:10:55] Speaker 04:
But what matters under the legal test is that she took decisive action, calculated to generate activity in California.

[00:11:06] Speaker 04:
And also, there's another way to look at it.

[00:11:08] Speaker 04:
Putting aside her activity in directing the appointment of Mr. Chung, she was using him as her agent.

[00:11:19] Speaker 04:
her son, but it's also her investment advisor.

[00:11:22] Speaker 04:
And regardless of the specifics of the actual appointment that took place, she was relying on him, a California agent, to manage the trust for her.

[00:11:37] Speaker 04:
And that's like the other cases that we cited, where someone looks to an investment advisor in the forum.

[00:11:45] Speaker 04:
And by the way,

[00:11:48] Speaker 04:
Another perspective on this is that both of the defendants are chargeable with the forum contacts of their agent.

[00:11:58] Speaker 04:
So putting aside the actual appointment, given the existence of the relationship, they're both chargeable under cases such as Cher in the Ninth Circuit, where the agency concept is recognized.

[00:12:17] Speaker 04:
And we think that's a pretty basic idea, that a principal is chargeable with the forum contacts of the agent.

[00:12:27] Speaker 02:
Did you want to reserve any time for rebuttal?

[00:12:29] Speaker 02:
You're down to about two and a half minutes.

[00:12:31] Speaker 02:
You don't have to, but if you'd like to.

[00:12:34] Speaker 04:
I think I will, Your Honor.

[00:12:35] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:12:36] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:12:36] Speaker 04:
At this point.

[00:12:37] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:12:37] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:12:38] Speaker 02:
Great.

[00:12:38] Speaker 02:
Thank you very much.

[00:12:41] Speaker 02:
OK.

[00:12:42] Speaker 02:
So I understand that appellees are splitting their time.

[00:12:47] Speaker 02:
I don't know which one of you wants to go first, but you can come on up.

[00:12:51] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:12:53] Speaker 03:
Good morning, Your Honor.

[00:12:54] Speaker 03:
May it please the court?

[00:12:55] Speaker 03:
My name is Daniel McKinnon.

[00:12:57] Speaker 03:
I represent Appellee Chung Young-Hue, who is the personal representative of Chung Peng Chi-Mei through her power of attorney.

[00:13:04] Speaker 03:
I respectfully urge this court to affirm the district court's dismissal of this case for lack of jurisdiction.

[00:13:11] Speaker 05:
Let me ask you the question I asked your adversary.

[00:13:15] Speaker 05:
When did you learn of the death

[00:13:17] Speaker 03:
It was around the time that the order dismissing the case was entered.

[00:13:24] Speaker 03:
At that point, Chung Young-Hui was the representative.

[00:13:29] Speaker 03:
Prior to that, Chung Pang Chi-Mei was an 84-year-old bedridden woman with severe dementia.

[00:13:37] Speaker 03:
So this action has always been defended through a representative, Your Honor.

[00:13:45] Speaker 03:
All right.

[00:13:47] Speaker 03:
Go ahead.

[00:13:48] Speaker 03:
The district court correctly applied the law when it determined that the appellant, Elizabeth Chung's claim for declaratory relief does not arise out of or relate to any sufficient contacts between Chi-Mei and the state of California.

[00:14:03] Speaker 03:
That's the rule that applies to this jurisdictional question.

[00:14:08] Speaker 03:
And what it found correctly is that appellate's claim arises out of the funding of Chi-Mei's trust in 2004.

[00:14:15] Speaker 03:
What appellant and her now strange husband, David Chung,

[00:14:18] Speaker 03:
We're living in Hong Kong.

[00:14:20] Speaker 05:
So what about the subsequent event where Chi-Mei directs her son in California to be the investment advisor and then he carries out actions from California, yes?

[00:14:38] Speaker 03:
Except for, Your Honor, that doesn't contribute to any injury.

[00:14:41] Speaker 03:
The fact of what happened with respect to any investment

[00:14:46] Speaker 03:
in the trust corpus is not the claim that's being made in the first amended complaint.

[00:14:53] Speaker 03:
The claim is the mother's trust gambit.

[00:14:56] Speaker 03:
And that is begins and ends in large part by what happened in 2004 while the parties were living in Hong Kong and Thailand.

[00:15:05] Speaker 03:
The funding of this trust using allegedly marital assets.

[00:15:08] Speaker 03:
Now that's denied.

[00:15:10] Speaker 03:
But that is the allegations in the complaint.

[00:15:12] Speaker 03:
And when you look through the complaint,

[00:15:14] Speaker 03:
And I know they've argued very strongly that this is not the case, but you look through the complaint, multiple instances where the relief being sought and the allegations being made are that the appellant, Elizabeth Chung, has a right and interest in this trust corpus because it is community assets.

[00:15:38] Speaker 03:
And that kind of goes to a fundamental issue in this case.

[00:15:41] Speaker 03:
which is that, as counsel has just indicated, there's been a trial in the dissolution action that just completed.

[00:15:48] Speaker 03:
And the fundamental issue in that case, as we raised in our answering brief, is that the fundamental issue in that case is whether community assets were used to fund the Mother's Trust.

[00:16:03] Speaker 03:
This case and that case

[00:16:06] Speaker 03:
that is bound together in the sense that if that case determines that those assets are not community assets, then where does that leave this case?

[00:16:18] Speaker 03:
And that's why the domestic relations exception comes in.

[00:16:21] Speaker 03:
That's why the abstention doctrine comes into play.

[00:16:24] Speaker 03:
But even setting that aside, back to your honor's question with respect to the investment, this does not involve any investment.

[00:16:31] Speaker 03:
That's not the claim.

[00:16:32] Speaker 03:
In fact, as the district court noted,

[00:16:35] Speaker 03:
He didn't stick it under his mattress, allegedly, and therefore there was some loss or there's some allegation that it was mismanaged or that it would have grown to something bigger had this marital asset not been transferred to the mother, allegedly.

[00:16:52] Speaker 03:
Rather, the allegation is that it was transferred to the mother in the amount of $5 million to fund a trust that has now grown to $30 million.

[00:17:02] Speaker 03:
So there's absolutely no injuring.

[00:17:04] Speaker 03:
I think that is what the district court, when it talked about it, tried to explain.

[00:17:09] Speaker 03:
I know counsel in his brief, especially in his reply brief, raised the issue of legal basis.

[00:17:15] Speaker 03:
But that's all the court was trying to get at, is that at the end of the day, the claim arises out of this funding of the trust.

[00:17:23] Speaker 03:
And if you can't establish that the funding of the trust occurred using marital assets, you certainly cannot establish that somehow some investment made 12 years later has any relevance.

[00:17:36] Speaker 03:
The reality is whether that money had been invested in one company or a house

[00:17:42] Speaker 03:
or another company, a company in Minnesota or Nebraska or wherever, it doesn't matter.

[00:17:48] Speaker 03:
The claim would be the same, that marital assets were used to fund a trust that she is entitled to.

[00:17:55] Speaker 03:
And that's what she's seeking.

[00:17:57] Speaker 03:
And if she's not seeking that, as she's argued in her briefs, that no, I'm not seeking declaratory relief based on a finding of marital assets, then she doesn't have any standing.

[00:18:09] Speaker 03:
The court can't simply say,

[00:18:12] Speaker 03:
These assets are not chung-peng chi-mays.

[00:18:16] Speaker 03:
And what do we do with it?

[00:18:17] Speaker 03:
It goes into a void.

[00:18:18] Speaker 03:
It goes into ether.

[00:18:18] Speaker 03:
It just sits out there.

[00:18:20] Speaker 03:
That's not how declaratory relief works.

[00:18:22] Speaker 03:
There needs to be some injury to the person that they can establish standing for declaratory relief.

[00:18:30] Speaker 03:
And here, you don't have that standing either two different ways.

[00:18:34] Speaker 03:
It's kind of a conundrum they're into.

[00:18:36] Speaker 03:
They kind of twist themselves into pretzel trying to figure this out.

[00:18:39] Speaker 03:
which is either you don't have standing because you're not seeking an adjudication of your own rights, because you're claiming, I'm a stranger to it.

[00:18:48] Speaker 03:
I'm a stranger to the trust.

[00:18:49] Speaker 03:
I'm not seeking anything under that.

[00:18:52] Speaker 03:
Or you are seeking an adjudication as to the marital assets being community property.

[00:18:59] Speaker 03:
And therefore, the domestic relations exception applies, and abstention should apply as well.

[00:19:09] Speaker 01:
Can you address your counsel on the other side's asking us to use the but-for test instead of arises out of or relates to?

[00:19:21] Speaker 03:
Well, I think the but-for test is the arise out of and relates to.

[00:19:25] Speaker 03:
I mean, that is essentially the same test.

[00:19:28] Speaker 03:
I don't think there's any confusion as to the law that applies here.

[00:19:32] Speaker 03:
The but-for is the arise out of or relates to.

[00:19:36] Speaker 03:
And in this case, the injury, the claim doesn't arise out of or relate for or is the but for cause based on an investment in 10X.

[00:19:49] Speaker 03:
And mind you, this is an important fact.

[00:19:51] Speaker 03:
And I think we didn't get to this point.

[00:19:54] Speaker 03:
10X is a Cayman Island company.

[00:19:57] Speaker 03:
It's not a California company.

[00:19:59] Speaker 03:
Their claim is even more removed, which is that, well, 10X, although it's a Cayman Island company, 10X owns WTI, which is a California company.

[00:20:10] Speaker 03:
Well, that's not a basis he hasn't cited.

[00:20:13] Speaker 03:
There's no law that supports that position.

[00:20:14] Speaker 03:
In fact, that would blow up specific jurisdiction.

[00:20:18] Speaker 03:
Any time a company had an ownership interest in another company in another state, regardless of the claim, they would be subjected to jurisdiction in that state.

[00:20:28] Speaker 03:
Thank you very much.

[00:20:29] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Your Honors.

[00:20:30] Speaker 03:
Appreciate it.

[00:20:31] Speaker 03:
Mr. Evans.

[00:20:35] Speaker 00:
Good morning, Your Honors.

[00:20:36] Speaker 00:
May it please the Court, I'm Terrence J. Evans from Duane Morris, and I'm here on behalf of defendant Appellee Intertrust, Bahamas Limited.

[00:20:44] Speaker 00:
As we expressed in our answering brief, this is a case that should not be in federal court.

[00:20:53] Speaker 00:
As acknowledged by counsel for the plaintiff-appellant,

[00:20:58] Speaker 00:
Elizabeth was aware of the existence of this trust back in 2004, and she waited approximately 18 years to file the federal action while in the midst of intense litigation and facing trial in the dissolution action.

[00:21:14] Speaker 00:
Here, we have a situation where she was aware that there was this so-called trust gambit

[00:21:21] Speaker 00:
She now wants to benefit from this trust gambit where there was a five million dollar investment that now has generated more than thirty million dollars.

[00:21:31] Speaker 00:
This was a trust that initiated while they were living in Hong Kong and the mother-in-law was living in Taiwan.

[00:21:40] Speaker 00:
It involved an investment in a Cayman Islands company.

[00:21:45] Speaker 00:
Later the assets were moved to the Bahamas where our client

[00:21:51] Speaker 00:
does business.

[00:21:52] Speaker 00:
It's been undisputed throughout this entire litigation that InterTrust Bahamas is a Bahamas based company that has never done business in California, has never had employees in California, has never had an address, has never had a telephone in California, has never done any work whatsoever.

[00:22:13] Speaker 00:
The plaintiff requested that there be jurisdictional discovery after the

[00:22:18] Speaker 00:
District Court properly granted our motion to dismiss the initial complaint.

[00:22:24] Speaker 00:
There was extensive discovery where the plaintiff tried to find some basis to support jurisdiction.

[00:22:30] Speaker 00:
There was a deposition of the person most knowledgeable of Intertrust Bahamas.

[00:22:34] Speaker 00:
There was extensive document production.

[00:22:38] Speaker 00:
And throughout that whole process, the plaintiff was never able to find anything to support jurisdictional discovery, and this is confirmed

[00:22:46] Speaker 00:
In the first amended complaint, there is not one citation to any deposition testimony, any discovery response, any document that was produced during discovery that would support jurisdiction in this case.

[00:22:59] Speaker 00:
So we're asking that the court affirm the decision by the district court in favor of Intertrust Bahamas that found that there was no jurisdiction.

[00:23:09] Speaker 00:
There were no meaningful contacts whatsoever that would justify jurisdiction in this matter.

[00:23:15] Speaker 00:
They're also additional.

[00:23:16] Speaker 05:
So at least part of the claim is that the appointment of David, I guess is his name, the son anyway, or whatever, whoever the son is, to run the investment and give investment advice in California was the event that created jurisdiction.

[00:23:41] Speaker 05:
counsel for the co-defendant says that's all irrelevant.

[00:23:49] Speaker 05:
But I thought I heard plaintiff's counsel say that your position was that that was a proper appointment.

[00:23:59] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:23:59] Speaker 00:
And the district court found that it wasn't InterTrust Bahamas that made the decision to appoint.

[00:24:06] Speaker 00:
It was simply granting the request of the settler of the trust.

[00:24:10] Speaker 00:
But more importantly, the court found that the alleged injury that Miss Elizabeth Chung is claiming didn't arise out of that transaction.

[00:24:18] Speaker 00:
You really have to trace it back to the very beginning, the establishment of the trust in 2004, when the Chung's were living in Hong Kong and the mother-in-law was living in Taiwan.

[00:24:30] Speaker 00:
You have to trace it back to that moment.

[00:24:32] Speaker 02:
Right.

[00:24:32] Speaker 02:
So that was going to be my question.

[00:24:33] Speaker 02:
Does it matter one way or another for purposes of this appeal?

[00:24:38] Speaker 00:
Agree completely your honor.

[00:24:40] Speaker 00:
It doesn't matter because that is not the origination of the injury I also wanted to point out that several of the cases that were cited in the reply brief by Elizabeth Chung are factually distinguishable none of them are directly on point, and I just wanted to make a few examples the Basta case which is something that is repeated throughout the reply brief and

[00:25:05] Speaker 00:
That is an employment case having to do with sexual orientation discrimination.

[00:25:10] Speaker 00:
It's factually distinguishable.

[00:25:11] Speaker 00:
It has absolutely nothing to do with the issue that we're dealing with in this case.

[00:25:15] Speaker 00:
Also, the Ford Motor Company versus Montana Eighth Judicial District Court case, that's a products liability case involving the Ford Motor Company where they sold product in the forum state where there was an issue about whether or not they had

[00:25:34] Speaker 00:
sufficient contacts.

[00:25:36] Speaker 00:
None of that is applicable to what we're dealing with here.

[00:25:38] Speaker 00:
We're dealing with a trust company that is based in the Bahamas that has no meaningful contacts whatsoever in California.

[00:25:46] Speaker 00:
The district court specifically said that there was nothing that InterTrust Bahamas did to purposely avail themselves of any business opportunities in California.

[00:25:56] Speaker 05:
All of the other cases... Well, you're right that Ford is a very different case, but the principle in Ford, is it not, is that jurisdiction will lie, personal jurisdiction, if either plaintiff's claim arises out of the underlying events that are the subject of the claim, or

[00:26:26] Speaker 05:
relates to, and I think the court said that the reason they added relates to is that it doesn't require a causal showing.

[00:26:46] Speaker 05:
So even though Ford on its facts is very different,

[00:26:51] Speaker 05:
Isn't that then an extension beyond the but for the normal understanding of but for that?

[00:27:00] Speaker 05:
It doesn't have to be a causal showing.

[00:27:03] Speaker 05:
There's just has to be some sort of close relationship.

[00:27:06] Speaker 05:
Now you're saying it's not a close relationship, but that may be correct.

[00:27:10] Speaker 05:
But I just want to make sure you agree with me that it doesn't have to be a causal showing at least under Ford.

[00:27:18] Speaker 00:
I agree with that and as it relates to the first part of that analysis, it's our position and it was the position of the district court that the alleged injury for Ms.

[00:27:28] Speaker 00:
Chung did not arise out of any sort of contact that occurred in California.

[00:27:33] Speaker 00:
It really relates back to the original investment in 2004 when they were in Hong Kong.

[00:27:40] Speaker 00:
And then for the second part, again, there were no significant meaningful contacts, at least as it relates to the defendants here.

[00:27:49] Speaker 00:
I want to reserve time.

[00:27:51] Speaker 00:
Are there any other questions that the panel has?

[00:27:53] Speaker 02:
You won't have any rebuttal time, but you have 13, 12 seconds if you want to say anything else to us.

[00:27:58] Speaker 00:
Just to wrap up here, we believe that the district court's decision was accurate and should be affirmed, and we appreciate the court's consideration.

[00:28:05] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:28:06] Speaker 00:
Thank you.

[00:28:13] Speaker 04:
Just a few points.

[00:28:15] Speaker 04:
First of all, Judge Rakoff is absolutely correct.

[00:28:18] Speaker 04:
Ford does stand for the idea that a rise out of and relate to are alternatives, and that the relate to alternative is not causal.

[00:28:27] Speaker 04:
That's a point the Ninth Circuit made in Yamashita, and that's... Yeah, but it doesn't mean that relate to is any old connection whatsoever.

[00:28:37] Speaker 05:
In Ford, it was a very close, full relationship, nothing like what you're alleging here.

[00:28:45] Speaker 04:
Well, it's different.

[00:28:47] Speaker 04:
the real point is the one you made, Your Honor, that relates to is not causal.

[00:28:51] Speaker 04:
And in this case, the relate to test is satisfied because the dispute involves the purchase of the assets.

[00:29:00] Speaker 05:
And by the way, this is... But isn't the point, as I gather from your adversaries, is you are not claiming

[00:29:10] Speaker 05:
that the assets were mismanaged in California through the advice of the son or whatever.

[00:29:17] Speaker 05:
Your claim is this was always common property of the husband and wife, and it should never have been put into the trust in the first place.

[00:29:30] Speaker 05:
And that's where your claim arises, yes?

[00:29:33] Speaker 04:
Well, that is what our claim is, but from the legal perspective,

[00:29:37] Speaker 04:
The dispute that we have, this goes to the heart of what the due process inquiry is.

[00:29:43] Speaker 04:
We look to see whether the defendant has a connection to the forum.

[00:29:49] Speaker 04:
That's clearly true here through the appointment of the agent.

[00:29:53] Speaker 04:
Then the question is, does the dispute arise out of or relate to that connection?

[00:30:00] Speaker 04:
It clearly does because the assets were purchased at the direction

[00:30:06] Speaker 04:
of the California agent.

[00:30:08] Speaker 04:
And that's what the dispute is.

[00:30:10] Speaker 04:
My friend Mr. Evans was speaking of an injury taking place at some other point.

[00:30:16] Speaker 04:
There was no injury until the scheme was repurposed.

[00:30:21] Speaker 04:
And that didn't happen in 2004.

[00:30:24] Speaker 04:
There was no dispute about the ownership of the 10X shares until they were purchased.

[00:30:31] Speaker 04:
And that didn't happen until 2016.

[00:30:34] Speaker 04:
So these events that actually create the dispute occurred long after 2004.

[00:30:41] Speaker 04:
And there's no doubt the evidence of what happened in 2004 is of important evidentiary value.

[00:30:50] Speaker 04:
But that's not the test.

[00:30:52] Speaker 04:
The test is not whether there are events other than those out of which the claim arises that are of evidentiary value.

[00:31:02] Speaker 04:
That's just not the test.

[00:31:04] Speaker 04:
And that's all they're pointing to.

[00:31:06] Speaker 04:
You're over time, so why don't you just take another 30 seconds and finish up.

[00:31:10] Speaker 04:
All they're pointing to is evidence.

[00:31:14] Speaker 04:
The evidence is important, but it's not determinative.

[00:31:18] Speaker 04:
For due process purposes, we look for a connection.

[00:31:21] Speaker 04:
We have that.

[00:31:23] Speaker 04:
Once there's a connection, we look for the relationship.

[00:31:27] Speaker 04:
And we have that as well, because the agent directed the purchase.

[00:31:32] Speaker 04:
of the assets that are in dispute.

[00:31:35] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:31:37] Speaker 02:
We thank each of you for your very helpful presentations this morning.

[00:31:41] Speaker 02:
This case is submitted and we are adjourned for this session.

[00:31:44] Speaker 02:
Thank you.