[00:00:02] Speaker 00: case number 14-7170. [00:00:05] Speaker 00: Mikhail Tumazoo at L, Appellants vs. Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus at L. Mrs. Simpedes from the Appellates, Mr. Saltzman for Appellate TRNC and Mr. Hughes for Appellate HSBC at L. [00:00:30] Speaker 02: Good morning. [00:00:31] Speaker 02: We note that earlier today we received a word that Council for Appellants would not be here today, not feeling well. [00:00:40] Speaker 02: We'll proceed with the argument in his absence. [00:00:43] Speaker 02: We have his brief. [00:00:44] Speaker 02: And I think what we will do is allow him to respond by paper to the transcript of the argument that you all offer. [00:00:56] Speaker 02: But with that, we will [00:00:59] Speaker 03: received assaults my name is david saltzman the turkish republic [00:01:17] Speaker 03: Please let me know. [00:01:21] Speaker 03: I'll start over. [00:01:22] Speaker 03: Good morning, and may it please the Court. [00:01:24] Speaker 03: My name is David Salzman for APA-LE, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which, if there's no objection, I'll abbreviate as the TRNC. [00:01:33] Speaker 03: With me today is my associate, Rachel Sirkara Dengtas. [00:01:36] Speaker 03: The district court should be affirmed. [00:01:39] Speaker 03: It dismissed the appellant's complaint under Federal Rule 12b2 for lack of personal jurisdiction over the TRNC, and nothing that appellants have argued in their opening brief should change that. [00:01:51] Speaker 03: Very little is in dispute in this appeal. [00:01:54] Speaker 03: First, making reference to the Supreme Court's decision in Daimler AG against Bauman, the appellants have explicitly conceded that general personal jurisdiction over the TRNC cannot attach. [00:02:05] Speaker 03: Second, the appellants have explicitly conceded that the government contacts exception exists and applies in this case. [00:02:13] Speaker 03: Also not in dispute is that the appellants plead only a single federal claim, that under the Lanham Act. [00:02:19] Speaker 03: The appellants remaining arguments, therefore, [00:02:21] Speaker 03: have to be for specific personal jurisdiction under the DC Long-Arm Statute, utilizing those few jurisdictional contacts that are not otherwise excluded under the government contacts exception, and for federal long-arm jurisdiction, though only predicated on the Lanham Act. [00:02:37] Speaker 03: The appellants allege specific personal jurisdiction under the Transacting Any Business in the District Clause of the DC Long-Arm Statute. [00:02:45] Speaker 03: That's DC Code Section 13-423A1. [00:02:50] Speaker 03: They later asserted an assortment of new theories under other subsections of this statute, but all of these were pledged for the first time on appeal and should be ignored. [00:02:59] Speaker 03: The appellant's specific personal jurisdiction arguments fall far short of the standard in this circuit. [00:03:04] Speaker 03: A key element of specific personal jurisdiction is a nexus requirement that the appellant's claims arise from the TRNC's contacts in the District of Columbia. [00:03:13] Speaker 03: This court has stated that the DC long arm statute requires that the claims must arise from the particular transaction of business by the defendant in the District of Columbia, and here they do not. [00:03:25] Speaker 03: The gravamen of the appellant's complaint is an action for damages for the alleged dispossession of land, all of which is located on the island of Cyprus, some 5,500 miles from the District of Columbia. [00:03:37] Speaker 03: It is not in dispute that none of the appellants reside in the District of Columbia. [00:03:41] Speaker 03: Similarly, there has been no allegation of an injury suffered in the District of Columbia. [00:03:47] Speaker 03: In fact, the record is devoid of even a single allegation concerning a specific transaction for a specific property owned by appellants, whether it's a specific deed of title that was transferred, a specific transfer of funds, or anything of that nature that will have occurred in the District of Columbia or through the TRNC's office here. [00:04:06] Speaker 03: As this court has held in for Chicago against United Exchange Company, it's the plaintiff's burden to assert jurisdictional facts, not merely conclusory statements. [00:04:16] Speaker 03: When the TRNC moved to dismiss the appellant's complaint, we provided three detailed affidavits, two by the Washington, D.C. [00:04:23] Speaker 03: representative of the TRNC, which refuted nearly all of the jurisdictional allegations made by the appellants. [00:04:30] Speaker 03: Crucially, and as was recognized by the court below, none of the affidavits were contested by the appellants. [00:04:36] Speaker 03: Neither the content of the affidavits nor the veracity of defiance were credibly challenged. [00:04:42] Speaker 03: And courts in this circuit have widely held that the defendant, of course, can utilize affidavits to counter a plaintiff's jurisdictional allegations. [00:04:50] Speaker 03: In fact, the Appellant's opening brief relies significantly on the TRNC's affidavits, though largely by misrepresenting them. [00:04:57] Speaker 03: Turning to the federal long arm statute, this can be easily discarded. [00:05:01] Speaker 03: It requires that a federal claim be raised. [00:05:03] Speaker 03: And we know that only a single federal claim was raised, that under the Lanham Act. [00:05:07] Speaker 03: To plead an action under the act, one must have two competitors in commerce. [00:05:11] Speaker 03: And there's nothing in the appellant's complaint that argues that we have two competitors in commerce. [00:05:17] Speaker 03: Nothing fits this mold. [00:05:19] Speaker 03: Moreover, the appellants do not allege that the supposed Lanin Act violation, which supposedly occurred in the United States, has any relationship to the alleged dispossession of land on the island of Cyprus. [00:05:30] Speaker 03: Even further, when making their Lanham Act claims, the appellants refer to the defendants in aggregate without ever singling out the TRNC or the HSBC defendants. [00:05:41] Speaker 03: It is impossible, therefore, to tease out any cogent or credible allegations related to the Lanham Act. [00:05:46] Speaker 03: And finally, one can hardly characterize the TRNC's contacts in the United States as a whole as so pervasive that the TRNC is essentially at home in the United States, as would be required by Daimler. [00:06:00] Speaker 03: This covers all the elements of rule 4K, too, and therefore personal jurisdiction under this rule cannot attach. [00:06:06] Speaker 03: It seems my time is about up. [00:06:07] Speaker 02: Your time is up. [00:06:09] Speaker 02: Any questions? [00:06:10] Speaker 02: No. [00:06:10] Speaker 02: Judge Henderson, any questions? [00:06:13] Speaker 03: No. [00:06:14] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:06:15] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:06:20] Speaker 02: Mr. Hughes, good morning. [00:06:22] Speaker 01: Thank you. [00:06:23] Speaker 01: May it please the court, Paul Hughes. [00:06:24] Speaker 01: I represent the two HSBC defendants. [00:06:27] Speaker 01: Your Honor, the district court dismissed the claims against the HSBC defendants for two independent reasons. [00:06:33] Speaker 01: Neither of those grounds were challenged by the appellants in their opening grieve to this court. [00:06:37] Speaker 01: The first reason was simply that appellants failed to allege any basis to hold the two HSBC defendants liable for the alleged conduct of an entirely separate entity, a Turkish bank. [00:06:49] Speaker 01: Second, the district court found that the plaintiffs failed to meet the minimal requirements of Rule 8 by lumping together all of the different bank entities without specifying which conduct was allegedly committed by which bank. [00:07:06] Speaker 01: We submit that the district court's conclusion on both of those two issues was correct. [00:07:10] Speaker 01: That's not challenged on appeal. [00:07:13] Speaker 01: On appeal, the appellants advance a new argument of the Bank Secrecy Act that was waived below, and as we explained in our briefs, is without legal merit. [00:07:21] Speaker 01: So I would be pleased to answer any questions that the court may have. [00:07:25] Speaker 02: Judge Henderson, do you have any questions? [00:07:27] Speaker 03: No questions. [00:07:27] Speaker 02: Okay. [00:07:28] Speaker 02: Thank you very much.