[00:00:26] Speaker ?: Okay. [00:01:39] Speaker 04: Good morning. [00:01:40] Speaker 01: Good morning, Your Honors. [00:01:43] Speaker 01: May it please the Court, Daniel Weinberger, on behalf of Robert Shi, Chin Tae-Soo, and Tong Chung Tai, the Joint Executives of the Will of Yeh Lan Wong. [00:01:53] Speaker 01: May I reserve two minutes for a bottle? [00:01:56] Speaker 01: Yes. [00:01:57] Speaker 01: Your Honors, the District Court's dismissal of this case was wrong as a matter of law and fact. [00:02:03] Speaker 01: The doctrine of forum nonconvenience is a drastic exercise of the court's inherent authority to be invoked only in those rare cases where a plaintiff has chosen to bring suit in a most inconvenient forum that is so vexatious and oppressive as to be out of all proportion to the plaintiff's convenience. [00:02:24] Speaker 01: This is not that case. [00:02:26] Speaker 01: Over eight years ago, this suit was brought [00:02:30] Speaker 01: against these D.C. [00:02:31] Speaker 01: defendants in their home forum, the very place where a new mighty U.S. [00:02:36] Speaker 01: trust was formed for the very purpose of receiving the unlawful transfer of assets that gave rise to this suit. [00:02:45] Speaker 04: So you think the inconvenience focuses on the plaintiff? [00:02:49] Speaker 01: No. [00:02:49] Speaker 01: Well, it focuses on both. [00:02:52] Speaker 01: It's equal. [00:02:53] Speaker 04: You said the plaintiff. [00:02:54] Speaker 04: That's why I want to be clear. [00:02:59] Speaker 01: Right. [00:02:59] Speaker 01: The focus is on both. [00:03:01] Speaker 04: And I think your argument is that given that the plaintiff filed in the defendant's home jurisdiction, the burden on the defendant is particularly heavy. [00:03:14] Speaker 01: Not only that. [00:03:14] Speaker 01: That is certainly the case. [00:03:16] Speaker 01: But not only that, but plaintiffs also filed in the only jurisdiction where they could. [00:03:21] Speaker 01: It was the only place where these defendants were amenable to suit. [00:03:26] Speaker 04: But as you know, [00:03:27] Speaker 04: In forum noncommunities cases, judges have imposed conditions on the defendants to avoid those types of obstacles. [00:03:37] Speaker 01: Right, but that doesn't change the fact that the plaintiff's initial choice of forum was made for legitimate reasons. [00:03:44] Speaker 01: And here, in this case, seven years went by before these defendants consented to jurisdiction in Taiwan. [00:03:54] Speaker 03: So how does... Go ahead. [00:03:56] Speaker 03: How does, I mean, the district court found that they did not, that the delay was not unreasonable because, in a sense, the case is still being teed up at its outset. [00:04:12] Speaker 03: And you're saying, yeah, but there's still a lot of time that went by. [00:04:16] Speaker 03: How should we evaluate that, given that the [00:04:22] Speaker 03: much of the case still has to occur, including, I gather, all of the discovery. [00:04:29] Speaker 01: Right. [00:04:29] Speaker 01: Well, the reality is that all of these things that have occurred already [00:04:37] Speaker 01: If they were right, if the defendants were right, that this case was actually oppressive and vexatious, they could have and should have made that argument way back at the beginning. [00:04:48] Speaker 01: Instead, they moved to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and they were wrong, as this court held. [00:04:56] Speaker 01: They moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim on the very Taiwan law claims that they now argue are too inconvenient for the district court to decide. [00:05:07] Speaker 01: They moved to dismiss for failure to serve New Mighty Foundation properly. [00:05:12] Speaker 00: But aren't all those issues that could be easily resolved regardless of where the district court sits, what those legal judgments? [00:05:22] Speaker 01: Well, they weren't. [00:05:25] Speaker 00: So is your criticism that they should have brought their forum non-convenience motion in their answer? [00:05:30] Speaker 00: Is that it? [00:05:32] Speaker 01: They should have brought it in their motion to dismiss. [00:05:34] Speaker 01: They had two motions to dismiss that they brought at the outset of this case. [00:05:39] Speaker 01: Almost all the defenses that they raised in both their first two motions to dismiss were defenses that they could have raised in their answer. [00:05:46] Speaker 01: And they chose to make a motion to dismiss. [00:05:51] Speaker 01: And the reality is that if this case were somehow to end up in Taiwan, they're going to raise a whole host of other Taiwanese procedural and jurisdictional defenses. [00:06:05] Speaker 01: Who knows what? [00:06:06] Speaker 01: Whatever their human ingenuity can invent, they're going to raise. [00:06:09] Speaker 01: And so many issues that we've already overcome over all these years [00:06:14] Speaker 01: are going to be raised. [00:06:16] Speaker 04: So let me just go down a list of points. [00:06:19] Speaker 04: Namely, that the plaintiff had no choice, that he filed in the defendant's home district, that the delay, as Judge Pillard mentions, there are several explanations for it, and a lot of time and expenses, time and money has been expended in connection with litigating these motions, even if it's at the early stages, pre-discovery of the case. [00:06:43] Speaker 04: plaintiff's ability to get documents that are needed when in plaintiff's view they're here, not elsewhere. [00:06:50] Speaker 04: Defendants are sophisticated litigants. [00:06:53] Speaker 04: The New Jersey case shows they could have raised this forum nonconvenience right at the beginning, as the Supreme Court has said is perfectly proper. [00:07:01] Speaker 04: And so the district court says yes, but [00:07:05] Speaker 04: and I want you to explore this with us. [00:07:08] Speaker 04: The way the district court sees the case and the way the district court in New Jersey saw the case is it's true that AC, through his representatives, decided to establish these trusts in the District of Columbia and took advantage, as it were, of the opportunity to do so here so that the trust could reasonably expect [00:07:35] Speaker 04: that they would be sued here and that they might encounter various difficulties in responding to a suit. [00:07:46] Speaker 04: But the district court says there are a lot of questions of Taiwanese law. [00:07:52] Speaker 04: You're suing under Taiwanese civil law. [00:07:56] Speaker 04: You are asking the court to interpret areas of law that are not settled under Taiwanese law. [00:08:05] Speaker 04: And why wouldn't this be something much more appropriate for the court in Taiwan to decide, being more familiar with the social, marital, sort of just the environmental aspect of deciding these very sensitive issues of first impression? [00:08:29] Speaker 01: The first thing I would note is I do not believe that there is another case, certainly another circuit court case that I'm aware of, and probably not another district court case, perhaps aside from the District of New Jersey's decision, that has dismissed a case almost solely on the public factors that it considered. [00:08:53] Speaker 01: The public factors, while [00:08:57] Speaker 01: The Supreme Court has said, I believe in Gilbert, the court said, after going through all the private factors, said it has a place. [00:09:08] Speaker 01: It has a place in the analysis. [00:09:11] Speaker 01: Yes, it does. [00:09:12] Speaker 01: But the place in the analysis is not the same as it is in the private factors, as countless, countless cases have found. [00:09:22] Speaker 01: And in this case, in particular, [00:09:26] Speaker 01: The public interest factors are not that weighty. [00:09:30] Speaker 01: I mean, in cases where the public interest factors were significant, in Paine, in Piper, those are cases where multiple people died. [00:09:41] Speaker 01: And the regulatory agencies in those governments, in those countries, were investigating it. [00:09:48] Speaker 01: Public corruption, those countries' governments were investigating it. [00:09:55] Speaker 01: This is not that case. [00:09:57] Speaker 01: And the reality is, I mean, they're asking how should we, they're trying to argue that this is such an important public policy question. [00:10:10] Speaker 01: Reality is, there's pretty much only one person who's still alive. [00:10:14] Speaker 01: Actually, now he's dead, but people. [00:10:19] Speaker 01: purported spouses who claim to be multiple spouses, probably the only one left in Taiwan for a law that for almost 100 years now, it's been unlawful to have multiple spouses. [00:10:35] Speaker 01: This issue is not going to arise again. [00:10:38] Speaker 01: This is not a particularly important issue of Taiwan law. [00:10:43] Speaker 03: It's hard to understand [00:10:47] Speaker 03: It seems like each side has a different characterization of what this case is about legally. [00:10:56] Speaker 03: The complaint presents it as a case about someone who's entitled to proceeds from an estate, and some of the money has been hidden away in Washington in trusts. [00:11:13] Speaker 03: So it's somebody who's a [00:11:16] Speaker 03: claiming an ownership interest, trying to get access. [00:11:19] Speaker 03: And that's a DC question of, is DC trust law, is DC other kinds of law being used as a vehicle for a fraudulent conveyance? [00:11:29] Speaker 03: And I take that to be more or less your characterization. [00:11:32] Speaker 03: And your opponents characterize this as an issue of first impression that turns on [00:11:38] Speaker 03: relative rightful shares and turns on this history of polygamy that's been illegal since 1930. [00:11:47] Speaker 03: It's hard for me to understand how to [00:11:52] Speaker 03: how to reconcile those views and how to understand the case? [00:11:56] Speaker 01: I mean, I think first of all, those issues that the defendants have raised, they're not the central question in the case. [00:12:02] Speaker 01: The central question in the case is whether these assets belonged to the marital estate. [00:12:10] Speaker 01: That's the primary question. [00:12:12] Speaker 01: They're trying to bring in [00:12:14] Speaker 01: a question that's way down the road that a non-party to this case can raise sometime down the road if the plaintiffs win here. [00:12:27] Speaker 01: P.C. [00:12:28] Speaker 01: Lee, the purported third spouse of Y.C., she can bring suit tomorrow in Taiwan under the Taiwan Family Act. [00:12:39] Speaker 01: and argue that she is a spouse of YC and therefore entitled to a share of the assets. [00:12:46] Speaker 01: And if a Taiwanese court had said, yes, you're right, then the plaintiff's damages in this case may be lessened. [00:12:59] Speaker 01: But it doesn't take away their claims, and it doesn't change the basis of this case, which as you said is essentially a fraudulent command to a DC trust. [00:13:13] Speaker 01: All those issues, they've chosen. [00:13:16] Speaker 01: PC Lee has chosen not to assert those claims. [00:13:20] Speaker 01: She knows that she can do that. [00:13:22] Speaker 01: She started to do it. [00:13:24] Speaker 01: And she voluntarily discontinued those claims. [00:13:26] Speaker 01: She can do it. [00:13:27] Speaker 01: Instead, they want to argue piecemeal. [00:13:31] Speaker 01: wherever they can and say, oh wait, you know, she's a spouse and you need to, you know, we're allowed to assert this defense. [00:13:38] Speaker 01: They don't have a right under Taiwan law to even assert that defense in our view. [00:13:45] Speaker 03: And there's no question that Yuen Lan is an heir, was an heir. [00:13:52] Speaker 01: Right. [00:13:53] Speaker 01: Yeah, I mean, that's not the central focus. [00:13:55] Speaker 01: I mean, there's no dispute that for 72 years, she was a spouse of YC. [00:14:01] Speaker 01: So the domestic relations question that they're raising is not the central question in the case. [00:14:08] Speaker 01: And I would also note that first, the Supreme Court has strictly limited [00:14:19] Speaker 01: the quote unquote domestic relations exception to the abstention doctrine, the extent it has any relevance at all. [00:14:27] Speaker 01: But also, federal courts have on multiple occasions dealt with issues of domestic relations. [00:14:36] Speaker 03: But wait a minute, now you're sort of speaking out of both sides of your mouth because I thought you just told us [00:14:41] Speaker 03: This is not a case that requires resolution of the domestic relations issue. [00:14:47] Speaker 03: It's basically assume that Yue Lan is an heir. [00:14:54] Speaker 03: She is standing. [00:14:56] Speaker 03: And the question is, was the money that's in New Mighty part of the estate or not? [00:15:03] Speaker 03: And so it's a question about the trust. [00:15:05] Speaker 03: It's a question about the setting it up. [00:15:07] Speaker 03: It's a question about the provenance of those funds. [00:15:11] Speaker 01: Absolutely. [00:15:12] Speaker 01: Absolutely. [00:15:13] Speaker 03: Apart from any. [00:15:14] Speaker 03: And in fact, it sounded like you were considering that the proper forum for figuring out the domestic [00:15:22] Speaker 03: relations issue is Taiwan. [00:15:25] Speaker 01: Taiwan, yes. [00:15:26] Speaker 01: I mean, we do believe that that is where PC Li should raise that argument. [00:15:32] Speaker 01: The only reason I even brought up the other point is because they're going to come back here and try to argue that it has to be brought here. [00:15:40] Speaker 01: We don't agree with that at all. [00:15:41] Speaker 01: We don't think that that has to be addressed here, educated here. [00:15:46] Speaker 01: I think the [00:15:52] Speaker 01: The issue also of, I don't know if you want me to address the issue of deference in this appropriate standard that should be applied. [00:16:01] Speaker 04: I just want to follow up a little bit, because the district court's statement here is that it viewed the central question as to whether Iran, a lifelong resident and citizen of Taiwan, was denied certain spousal rights under Taiwanese inheritance law. [00:16:18] Speaker 04: and then goes on to say, the case would implicate questions of Taiwan's social policies and family law, hardly the local interests of a federal court. [00:16:31] Speaker 04: So you take direct issue with that view of the case. [00:16:35] Speaker 01: Yes, because essentially what the other sides argued, if I can draw an analogy here to the Piper case, they're essentially saying, let's pretend [00:16:48] Speaker 01: that the plane never crashed. [00:16:51] Speaker 01: And that's what this case is about. [00:16:54] Speaker 01: Well, no. [00:16:54] Speaker 01: I mean, if the plane never crashed, if these assets never came here, there would be no case. [00:16:59] Speaker 01: It wouldn't exist. [00:17:01] Speaker 01: And not only that, I mean, you could take it even a step further and say, looking at Piper, imagine that Piper was created for the sole purpose of doing flights back and forth between [00:17:19] Speaker 01: Blackpool and Perth. [00:17:21] Speaker 01: And that's what's going on here. [00:17:25] Speaker 01: The central focus of the case is whether this DC trust and DC foundation receive these assets and are holding these assets improperly. [00:17:37] Speaker 01: That's the question. [00:17:39] Speaker 01: I think that's a critical question. [00:17:44] Speaker 01: I mean, and also, when it comes to the private factors, I believe that the district court made numerous errors when it looked at the, well, let's start with translations. [00:18:02] Speaker 01: I mean, 35 years ago, the district court said in the Inray-Riad case, [00:18:14] Speaker 01: In any international case, there's going to be issues of translations whichever side of the world this case is hard on. [00:18:21] Speaker 01: And in this case, there is certainly going to be the case. [00:18:24] Speaker 01: The Declaration of Trust itself is in English. [00:18:29] Speaker 01: If we were to go over to Taiwan and argue, well, we're going to quibble about how it should be translated, it's the same issue. [00:18:37] Speaker 01: There's going to be tons of documents in English. [00:18:41] Speaker 03: You haven't challenged the validity of the trusts. [00:18:44] Speaker 03: themselves. [00:18:45] Speaker 03: This just strikes me as extremely vague, but that's not part of the case is challenging the validity of these trusts. [00:18:57] Speaker 01: We do not have the information. [00:18:59] Speaker 01: It is certainly possible that the actual conveyances themselves were unlawful. [00:19:06] Speaker 01: We certainly think that the claim that they made years down the road that the trustees and the trustee of New Mighty US Trust irrevocably delegated their authority to these trust managers [00:19:24] Speaker 01: We definitely think that that would be a violation of DC law. [00:19:29] Speaker 01: Now, we've never seen these supposed delegations, which presumably are in writing. [00:19:35] Speaker 01: And I would have to imagine they have all sorts of qualifications in them. [00:19:40] Speaker 01: Because let's imagine that these trust managers decide they're going to steal the funds. [00:19:47] Speaker 01: The DC trustee can say, oh, well, we washed our hands of it. [00:19:51] Speaker 01: We're the trustee. [00:19:52] Speaker 01: We don't owe any fiduciary duty. [00:19:55] Speaker 01: They can't do that. [00:19:56] Speaker 01: So there certainly are potential questions of D.C. [00:20:01] Speaker 01: law about how the trust is operated here. [00:20:06] Speaker 01: we need discovery to fully flesh those issues out. [00:20:12] Speaker 01: We couldn't just assert things that we don't have the full information yet to address, and that's part of the issue. [00:20:18] Speaker 01: I mean, we will be deprived, when I say we, I mean the plaintiffs, will be deprived of the access, the evidence necessary to prove their claims. [00:20:30] Speaker 01: In Taiwan, [00:20:33] Speaker 01: Non-parties cannot even be compelled in Taiwan to produce evidence. [00:20:42] Speaker 01: Their expert kind of quietly ignores that issue. [00:20:50] Speaker 01: But that's the law. [00:20:52] Speaker 01: So while they might try to argue while there are certain individuals, witnesses, who really are witnesses favorable to them who would come here regardless if they asked them to, they could put them up in Taiwan, they could say what they want, and the plaintiffs wouldn't be able to obtain documentary evidence to undercut their position. [00:21:14] Speaker 01: And the reality is also they have the burden, and one of the issues is the cost of, not sorry, not the cost, the ability to compel or compulsory process of unwilling witnesses. [00:21:32] Speaker 01: They have not anywhere shown that any of the witnesses that they would want to call would be unwilling to attend trial here. [00:21:43] Speaker 01: or to be deposed or anything else. [00:21:46] Speaker 01: It's their burden. [00:21:46] Speaker 01: In El Fadl, this court held that the defendants hold the burden on all of the elements of a foreign nonconvenience. [00:21:57] Speaker 03: What about enforcement? [00:21:59] Speaker 03: The record is a little confusing on that. [00:22:03] Speaker 01: Enforcement of a judgment? [00:22:04] Speaker 03: The district court has made a condition of [00:22:09] Speaker 03: the dismissal of the case that these defendants agree to submit to the jurisdiction of the court in Taiwan. [00:22:20] Speaker 03: And if they do and if you win, is it your understanding that because they are entities and they have submitted to the jurisdiction that you can collect then and there in Taiwan? [00:22:32] Speaker 01: No, not at all. [00:22:33] Speaker 01: And in fact, they argued against [00:22:37] Speaker 01: enforcing, making a judgment enforceable in Taiwan. [00:22:40] Speaker 03: That's what was a little confusing to me because they argued against, I thought it was a term that said that they would not oppose enforcement, which is much broader than [00:22:52] Speaker 01: I think it was that they would consent to collection. [00:22:58] Speaker 03: They haven't consented to collection, but under the law, as you understand it, the assertion of personal jurisdiction over them in Taiwan is not enough to collect. [00:23:10] Speaker 03: But they are the assets. [00:23:12] Speaker 03: No. [00:23:13] Speaker 01: I mean, the assets very well, if they're shares of a company, they could be in Delaware and you'd have to go to Delaware and say, you know, turn over the shares, change title of the shares to the plaintiffs. [00:23:31] Speaker 01: I mean, there's a reason why they opposed it. [00:23:34] Speaker 01: It wasn't just academic. [00:23:36] Speaker 01: They opposed a lot of things. [00:23:39] Speaker 01: And in reality, all of the things that they opposed were not forum nonconvenience issues. [00:23:46] Speaker 01: They were issues to forum shop to help them win, to make it harder, to make it less just for this case to be properly resolved. [00:23:59] Speaker 01: I'd like to, unless you have further questions, I'd like to reserve. [00:24:01] Speaker 01: Yes, of course. [00:24:06] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:24:06] Speaker 04: All right. [00:24:07] Speaker 04: Counsel for our police. [00:24:23] Speaker 02: May it please the Court, John Gardner from Skadden Arps for the Epileves, New Mighty U.S. [00:24:29] Speaker 02: Trust, New Mighty Foundation, and Kierkevich, L.L. [00:24:31] Speaker 02: Satan. [00:24:32] Speaker 02: Your Honors, Judge Bosberg got it completely right when he decided to dismiss this case in favor of a Taiwan forum. [00:24:41] Speaker 02: His decision is entitled to substantial deference on this appeal and can only be reversed if there is a clear abuse of discretion. [00:24:50] Speaker 02: Judge Roseberg did not come close to abusing his discretion in determining that this case belonged in Taiwan. [00:24:57] Speaker 02: And indeed, when analyzing that question, respectfully, one must bear in mind what the Supreme Court has said the central purpose of an FNC inquiry is, and that is to determine convenience for trial. [00:25:10] Speaker 02: Now, we've heard from my friend about their view. [00:25:14] Speaker 04: Do you agree, though, do you not, that your burden is particularly heavy since the plaintiff sued in your client's home jurisdiction? [00:25:23] Speaker 02: Well, no, no, I don't agree with that, Your Honor. [00:25:25] Speaker 04: Well, I mean, that's the Supreme Court. [00:25:28] Speaker 02: Well, no, I don't think so, Your Honor, with respect to what the Supreme Court has said is that when a foreign plaintiff sued. [00:25:37] Speaker 04: That's a different question. [00:25:37] Speaker 04: That's not what I asked you. [00:25:39] Speaker 02: I apologize. [00:25:40] Speaker 02: You asked whether I agree with a very heavy burden. [00:25:43] Speaker 04: When you're sued in your own home jurisdiction. [00:25:47] Speaker 02: We do have a heavy burden, but I apologize, I took the other side of that question, which is [00:25:55] Speaker 02: been raised also in the papers, which is what an act of deference is demanded in this situation. [00:26:01] Speaker 02: But I agree we have a heavy burden. [00:26:03] Speaker 02: Indeed, Judge Boasberg noted that it was our heavy burden when he went about his analysis. [00:26:07] Speaker 02: He specifically says that before he gets into the analysis. [00:26:10] Speaker 02: He talks about the fact that a defendant moving on forum non-convenience grounds bears the burden on each point. [00:26:17] Speaker 02: So he has that in mind. [00:26:19] Speaker 04: But it was a list that I went over with Appellant's counsel. [00:26:24] Speaker 04: in terms of looking at what the district court was addressing and its analysis. [00:26:30] Speaker 04: And really, the problem is the burden on the district court. [00:26:36] Speaker 04: That was the thrust of what I got out of the opinion, that the district court was not familiar with Taiwanese law, that documents would need to be translated. [00:26:46] Speaker 04: And yet our court has held that documents need to be translated no matter where something is. [00:26:52] Speaker 04: and that can't be dispositive. [00:26:56] Speaker 02: On its own, a translation issue would not be dispositive, but that's only one of very many issues that the district court found to be problematic in this case. [00:27:04] Speaker 02: If I could go to the central point that we're at odds with my friend on, Judge Bosberg correctly found, as Your Honor pointed out when addressing it with counsel for the appellant, Judge Bosberg correctly found, and he found it in a number of places, [00:27:21] Speaker 02: The central question here is whether Yulam Wong, a lifelong resident of Taiwan, was denied certain spousal rights under Taiwanese inheritance law. [00:27:31] Speaker 02: What importantly we didn't get to is indeed each count in the second amended complaint is in some way premised on her claimed entitlement to her full share [00:27:43] Speaker 02: of YC's marital estate. [00:27:45] Speaker 03: But isn't she allowed presumptively to assert her full share? [00:27:49] Speaker 03: I mean, the other punitive wives are not in the case, and I'm not entirely sure why you and how you represent their interests here. [00:28:00] Speaker 02: We do not represent their interests, and we're not looking to get money for them. [00:28:04] Speaker 02: What we are doing is defending a case under 1030-1 and 1030-3 of the Taiwan Civil Code [00:28:12] Speaker 02: And under 1030-1 of the Taiwan Civil Code, which they use as a predicate for their claim, they must first establish that Eulang Wong was entitled to the full spousal share. [00:28:24] Speaker 02: Because if she was not entitled to the full spousal share, as the District of New Jersey court found when dismissing the companion action on forum non-convenience grounds, if she was not entitled to the full spousal share, then under 1030-2 establish, [00:28:40] Speaker 02: that she was shorted in her entitlement to a part of Y.C. [00:28:46] Speaker 02: Wong's assets. [00:28:47] Speaker 02: That's why these defendants in defending a 1030-3 claim are entitled to say, but wait a minute, it's not been established that you were the sole spaz. [00:28:57] Speaker 02: That's a key allegation they've made. [00:28:59] Speaker 03: I'm not sure that I'm entirely following that. [00:29:02] Speaker 03: Does that just have to do with the numbers in this case? [00:29:06] Speaker 03: Because if I'm entitled to a half share, or a third share, or a sixth share, and the marital estate has been significantly diminished by some of the money being taken overseas, no matter which size of share I'm entitled to, I would want to pursue that. [00:29:27] Speaker 02: You might want to pursue, but this again goes to one of the issues that Judge Bosworth was alive to. [00:29:33] Speaker 02: You might want to pursue it, but you first have to get through a few stages to get there. [00:29:39] Speaker 02: Firstly, you have to establish, were you the sole spouse? [00:29:42] Speaker 02: And the reason you have to establish that is because if you were not, then you're not entitled to the full 50% spousal interest. [00:29:49] Speaker 04: No, but here's what we're getting at. [00:29:50] Speaker 04: Suppose she's only entitled to a third. [00:29:53] Speaker 04: Let's just look at that. [00:29:55] Speaker 04: The pot is going to be bigger if she can prove that [00:30:05] Speaker 04: the trust assets should be part of the marital estate? [00:30:12] Speaker 02: The pot would be higher by some amount. [00:30:15] Speaker 02: But what you have to remember here, Your Honors, is that when Y.C. [00:30:19] Speaker 02: Wong's estate was distributed, it was $1.7 billion. [00:30:23] Speaker 02: If you assume that there's a 50% marital share, then that would be half of that. [00:30:28] Speaker 02: Already you have a Taiwanese legal issue embedded in the case because there was a settlement agreement which was entered into with all three wives. [00:30:37] Speaker 02: We say that settlement agreement recognized all three wives had a claim on that interest. [00:30:43] Speaker 02: And we say, in fact, that disposes of that case. [00:30:47] Speaker 02: If the pot is higher, it has to be much higher. [00:30:50] Speaker 02: And that's a question that the court would have to deal with. [00:30:52] Speaker 04: So why can't the district court here decide what that settlement agreement says? [00:30:56] Speaker 02: It could, but it would have to bring everybody here to decide. [00:30:59] Speaker 04: Well, not necessarily. [00:31:00] Speaker 04: We've got Skype. [00:31:00] Speaker 04: We've got all kinds of ways of getting witnesses or the court that are not physically here. [00:31:07] Speaker 02: Let me talk about who those witnesses would be for a moment. [00:31:10] Speaker 02: The settlement agreement, if we go to that for a moment, and I will want to come back to the difficulty on the number of spouses, but the settlement agreement was entered into by the heirs of Waisi Wong. [00:31:23] Speaker 02: It was entered into by the first family, Yulan Wong through Winston Wong, he's her sole legatee. [00:31:29] Speaker 02: It was entered into by all of his siblings and his mother. [00:31:33] Speaker 02: All of those witnesses do two things, and they're all in Taiwan. [00:31:37] Speaker 02: All of those witnesses do two things. [00:31:39] Speaker 02: One, was it in fact recognized in the settlement agreement that there were three wives? [00:31:44] Speaker 02: Two, were in fact the spazzle share interest claims settled? [00:31:49] Speaker 02: Was it the intention to settle those claims? [00:31:52] Speaker 02: Three, all of those people other than Winston Wong have sworn in declarations in the New Jersey case [00:31:59] Speaker 02: that their mother was married to Y.C. [00:32:01] Speaker 02: Wong. [00:32:02] Speaker 02: Those people are siblings of Winston Wong, the principal antagonist here. [00:32:07] Speaker 02: They would all have to be witnesses on those issues. [00:32:10] Speaker 02: They all are in Taiwan. [00:32:12] Speaker 02: That's what the judge was getting at when he talked about the difficulty of the witnesses who are relevant to the matters being in Taiwan. [00:32:19] Speaker 03: It's still not entirely clear to me if that was a settlement and the plaintiffs characterized that as a settlement [00:32:29] Speaker 03: with respect to the Taiwan assets, with respect to that 1.7 billion. [00:32:33] Speaker 03: So that's a question. [00:32:35] Speaker 03: But assuming that Yuelang were able to recover some amount of money here, they would be in a [00:32:49] Speaker 03: sort of inverse position to the position that you would have. [00:32:53] Speaker 03: The second and third wife would either, they would have to come here, or Yue Lan's representative would have to go to Taiwan. [00:33:01] Speaker 03: Somebody has to seek assets somewhere. [00:33:04] Speaker 03: The assets are here, and they haven't come forward to make any claim on those assets. [00:33:12] Speaker 03: It's just not clear to me if she has a claim, and the question is only do other people also [00:33:18] Speaker 03: have a claim. [00:33:19] Speaker 03: It's just not clear to me why the fact that other people who are not in this case might also have a claim, why that would dictate where this claim, which has been raised and pressed against a DC [00:33:35] Speaker 03: Why this claim would have to go somewhere else? [00:33:40] Speaker 02: Well, let me address it. [00:33:42] Speaker 02: First of all, the fact is that it's a defense to a 1030-3 claim that the person bringing the claim [00:33:50] Speaker 02: was not shorted in the first place. [00:33:53] Speaker 02: And that's a defense these defendants are entitled to make. [00:33:56] Speaker 03: So that's why I was asking about, is it about the amount of money that they think, even if she's entitled to a bigger share, she's already received enough money to cover the bigger share? [00:34:05] Speaker 02: I apologize. [00:34:06] Speaker 02: Not only that. [00:34:08] Speaker 02: The problem that she has is that she did get distributed assets from the estate pursuant to the settlement agreement. [00:34:16] Speaker 02: As they plead themselves, she would have to show that the estate was two times what she got, because she's only entitled a half. [00:34:24] Speaker 02: What Professor Hsu has indicated and stated is her remedy, and if she didn't take it, she waived it, her remedy was to go against the other half that she didn't get and satisfy herself through that other half, the other half which was available before any other heir was distributed a penny. [00:34:44] Speaker 02: That's what she should have done. [00:34:45] Speaker 02: She did not do that. [00:34:46] Speaker 03: But her view may be, I only want my fair share of the marital estate. [00:34:52] Speaker 03: But the Maryland state, I believe, is larger. [00:34:55] Speaker 03: If I lose my claim that it's larger, I don't want to take from the others. [00:35:00] Speaker 03: But I do want to take that she was willing to settle that for whatever reason. [00:35:07] Speaker 03: But her position is, to the extent that the Maryland state is larger and I can so establish, I'm entitled to part of that. [00:35:15] Speaker 03: Why does that necessitate? [00:35:17] Speaker 02: some pro rata determination in advance as opposed to... Well, not necessarily in advance, but at trial it does because these defendants are entitled to say there is no extra that you are entitled to because your contribution to the marriage was exactly what you got already distributed and or you could have gotten distributed by taking from the other half of the estate. [00:35:38] Speaker 02: There's no reason these defendants are hamstrung from making that defense to a 1030-3 claim. [00:35:44] Speaker 02: In fact, it's [00:35:45] Speaker 02: as our expert has pointed out, it's a perfectly legitimate and reasonable position that any defender would take. [00:35:52] Speaker 02: And our concern, frankly, and the judge's concern, was that those issues are [00:35:58] Speaker 02: are issues that the Taiwan courts are available to determine. [00:36:01] Speaker 02: What is problematic in our view is why these three executors, each of whom is a lawyer in Taiwan, one of whom is a family lawyer in Taiwan, is familiar with the law in Taiwan, why they are so resistant to trying this case in their own home forum. [00:36:16] Speaker 02: In these circumstances, what we say is, what's going on? [00:36:21] Speaker 02: They're the people who were substituted into the case only in 2016. [00:36:26] Speaker 02: They filed an amended complaint only in 2017. [00:36:30] Speaker 02: When they filed the amended complaint in 2017, they expressly told the court, the reason you should allow us to amend this complaint is because the case is still in the starting blocks. [00:36:41] Speaker 02: It hasn't gone anywhere yet. [00:36:42] Speaker 02: So they are only new to the case. [00:36:45] Speaker 02: They have the ability to try the case in Taiwan. [00:36:48] Speaker 02: It's not like we're trying to say to them, you can't try the case. [00:36:51] Speaker 02: It's not a dismissal with prejudice. [00:36:53] Speaker 02: It's a dismissal in favor of a court where the court is familiar with the law, the morals. [00:36:59] Speaker 02: Some of those things are not things this court would be familiar with, trying the issue of whether you could have three spouses, which is something that- Right, showing my unfamiliarity with that. [00:37:10] Speaker 03: Polygamist marriage was outlawed in Taiwan in 1930. [00:37:15] Speaker 03: How could there be more than one wife? [00:37:21] Speaker 02: The court in Taiwan has already held their word and it was more than one wife in the high court decision. [00:37:25] Speaker 03: I read that in your brief, but that was for a particular purpose and also was not appealed, right? [00:37:32] Speaker 02: It was the appeal. [00:37:32] Speaker 03: It's not presidential? [00:37:34] Speaker 02: They claim it's not presidential, and our expert doesn't agree with that. [00:37:40] Speaker 02: Let me talk about that decision for a moment. [00:37:42] Speaker 02: That decision, they pled in their – well, Winston Wong pled in his amended complaint in this action. [00:37:49] Speaker 02: that the indicia of P.C. [00:37:52] Speaker 02: Lee not having been espoused is that a lower court case in Taiwan had held her not to be espoused. [00:37:58] Speaker 02: But that very case that they had cited and that Winston Wong had cited was reversed by the high court in Taiwan. [00:38:04] Speaker 02: And the high court in Taiwan found that P.C. [00:38:07] Speaker 02: Lee was the sole surviving spouse of Y.C. [00:38:11] Speaker 02: Wong and found that because by the time that decision came up, both Yulan and Yang Chao had [00:38:19] Speaker 02: had passed away. [00:38:20] Speaker 02: And just if I could finish, the answer is a question of why does it allow... About the Taiwanese reversals? [00:38:27] Speaker 02: Well, polygamy. [00:38:27] Speaker 02: No, polygamy. [00:38:28] Speaker 02: Yeah, I just don't... It's allowed, but there is a right of somebody to come in and seek to nullify the second or third marriages. [00:38:37] Speaker 02: But because PC Lee was married and nobody came in to seek to annul it, it remains valid. [00:38:43] Speaker 02: That's the answer to the Taiwan law question. [00:38:45] Speaker 02: That's laid out in our expert support. [00:38:48] Speaker 02: It's, of course, somewhat challenged by Professor Chan on their side. [00:38:53] Speaker 02: Those issues are [00:38:55] Speaker 02: obviously deeply embedded in Taiwan culture and something that we say also supports the transfer of the case, sorry, the dismissal of the case and its refiling in Taiwan should these executors be so advised. [00:39:10] Speaker 04: I'm willing to say I may not understand this, but I was sort of surprised that you couldn't sue trusts established in the D.C. [00:39:18] Speaker 04: federal courts. [00:39:21] Speaker 04: What are we to make of the fact that the trusts were represented by the same firm in New Jersey and in 2011 it filed a motion to dismiss on forum non-convenience grounds. [00:39:35] Speaker 04: It did not take that tactic here in the District of Columbia. [00:39:39] Speaker 04: And given that some of the delay here was because we held the case in advance, waiting for the Supreme Court to decide, and then because of the death and the need to appoint the executives of the state. [00:39:53] Speaker 04: But nevertheless, this is sort of a late gasp, isn't it? [00:39:58] Speaker 02: Well, no, I don't think that's a fair comment. [00:40:00] Speaker 04: Well, at least there's a lot of years. [00:40:02] Speaker 02: There's a lot of years. [00:40:03] Speaker 04: 2011 and 2016. [00:40:06] Speaker 02: Yes, and I'd like to slice to Judge Roseburg on this. [00:40:10] Speaker 04: So what I'm trying to get at is to the extent this is your home district where the trusts are founded, the inconvenience to the trust of presenting its case, isn't that something that was contemplated in effect by AC when [00:40:36] Speaker 04: he authorized establishing the trust here. [00:40:40] Speaker 04: I mean, he contemplated the trust could be sued here and that, given his own lifestyle, there were bound to be challenges. [00:40:52] Speaker 04: Given the amount of money, there were bound to be challenges. [00:40:56] Speaker 04: And he was willing to have the courts here resolve matters as to the trust. [00:41:06] Speaker 02: With respect, Your Honor, there is no form selection clause or anything else suggesting that any case over the trust would come to D.C. [00:41:14] Speaker 02: There's no evidence that Y.C. [00:41:16] Speaker 02: Wang in any way thought that there would be a... He's a sophisticated businessman. [00:41:21] Speaker 04: He's got all kinds of advisors. [00:41:23] Speaker 02: Somehow he died and tested, but he set up all these... Another issue of Taiwan culture, because Taiwanese people are not inclined to make wills. [00:41:33] Speaker 04: Fine, fine. [00:41:34] Speaker 04: But he knew... [00:41:35] Speaker 04: He knew the way the game was played. [00:41:38] Speaker 04: And he set up all these trusts. [00:41:43] Speaker 02: But this suit has nothing to do, I think Judge Pillard asked the question. [00:41:46] Speaker 02: This case has nothing to do with the validity of the trusts. [00:41:50] Speaker 02: The trusts are simply DC trusts into which assets were placed. [00:41:54] Speaker 02: There's no allegation. [00:41:55] Speaker 04: But the response to Judge Pillard was they don't have the discovery to make an unfounded allegation [00:42:04] Speaker 04: yet as to the establishment of the trust. [00:42:08] Speaker 04: So that's later down the road. [00:42:10] Speaker 04: And that falls, it seems to me, in your lap in terms of an argument. [00:42:15] Speaker 04: This is a very early stage of the case. [00:42:17] Speaker 04: And even though we're awfully late in raising this motion, there's no requirement we had to raise it further. [00:42:22] Speaker 04: And so let's start the case in Taiwan, even though we're not sure that the Taiwanese courts have the ability to get the documents much less [00:42:33] Speaker 04: or allow a plaintiff to get the documents under its own law, and it hasn't entered into the Hague agreement, and it's not clear whether the plaintiffs will be able to get the type of evidence they claim [00:42:47] Speaker 04: they would be able to get by suing here. [00:42:51] Speaker 02: Well, but Judge Bosberg dealt with each and every one of those issues in his opinion. [00:42:55] Speaker 02: He dealt with specifically all of those assertions. [00:42:57] Speaker 04: And I'm asking you how persuasive he is. [00:42:59] Speaker 02: I think very persuasive. [00:43:00] Speaker 02: And indeed, the courts have been cautioned about conducting de novo review about his exercise of his impression of what that post-Saint Cervo. [00:43:09] Speaker 04: This is not de novo review. [00:43:10] Speaker 04: This is for a clear abuse of discretion. [00:43:13] Speaker 02: Understood, Your Honor. [00:43:14] Speaker 04: So I'm asking questions. [00:43:16] Speaker 04: And you can't respond by saying, well, the judge said that. [00:43:19] Speaker 02: No, absolutely. [00:43:21] Speaker 02: But I'm pointing out the judge did say, in other words, he didn't miss the point. [00:43:25] Speaker 02: He did go through each of these factors and address them. [00:43:28] Speaker 02: And so with respect to the issue of, I was talking about the validity of the trust, and I want to focus on that issue first. [00:43:36] Speaker 02: not on the transfers into the trust, but on the validity of the trust. [00:43:40] Speaker 04: You don't want to talk about the evidentiary problem. [00:43:42] Speaker 02: No, I do. [00:43:43] Speaker 02: But I want to talk about the second. [00:43:45] Speaker 02: Because they raised in their reply brief an issue with respect to the Bermuda proceedings that they had not previously raised. [00:43:53] Speaker 02: I don't want to make that point. [00:43:55] Speaker 02: I don't want to make that point. [00:43:56] Speaker 02: What I want to say about that is they criticize, and this goes to the validity point, they criticize us. [00:44:04] Speaker 02: They're saying we're taking different positions in different places. [00:44:07] Speaker 02: They say we haven't moved for form non-convenience in Bermuda. [00:44:10] Speaker 02: That must mean that this is a strategic move for form non-convenience here. [00:44:14] Speaker 02: But I want to point out that in the record, you have the amended complaint in the Bermuda case. [00:44:19] Speaker 02: I'll get you the record site. [00:44:21] Speaker 02: In that case, what is being challenged is the validity of the Bermuda Trusts. [00:44:26] Speaker 02: What is being challenged is a statement by Winston Wong that the Bermuda Trusts were not properly established in accordance with Bermuda law. [00:44:35] Speaker 02: The right place for those claims to be determined is in Bermuda, where the Bermuda court is going to get to opine on its law. [00:44:43] Speaker 02: The right place for these claims to be determined is in Taiwan, where the Taiwan court will get to determine its own law. [00:44:51] Speaker 03: Second point on that... Well, these claims being claims about, as you said, the transfer of money into the trusts. [00:44:58] Speaker 03: That doesn't seem particularly rooted to Taiwan. [00:45:01] Speaker 02: That isn't the claim. [00:45:02] Speaker 02: That's the problem. [00:45:03] Speaker 02: That is not the claim. [00:45:05] Speaker 02: No, because the claim is under Taiwan law that she was a spouse who was shorted. [00:45:10] Speaker 02: And unless and until you establish that, nothing else will come into play. [00:45:15] Speaker 02: Second, and let me go to the issue of [00:45:19] Speaker 02: The final issue with respect to my Bermuda point is, in addition, there are no claims under these Taiwan Civil Law Code provisions at play in Bermuda. [00:45:27] Speaker 02: So that was a non-point raised in the reply, not before, and I just, because we were on the question of validity, I want to deal with. [00:45:34] Speaker 02: Next point with respect to the transfers into the trust. [00:45:37] Speaker 02: Those transfers are alleged to have taken place with respect to shares in Delaware corporations that are alleged to have been transferred into these trusts, and in which Y.C. [00:45:51] Speaker 02: Wong is alleged to have had a beneficial interest. [00:45:55] Speaker 02: Again, Y.C. [00:45:56] Speaker 02: Wong is the person alleged to have orchestrated a transfer of those shares into the trusts [00:46:02] Speaker 02: And this is another critical element of the 1030-3 claim. [00:46:06] Speaker 02: For the specific purpose of diminishing the spousal share of Yu Lan Wang, that is not an accepted allegation. [00:46:15] Speaker 02: That is a defended allegation. [00:46:19] Speaker 02: And that also will bring up issues that are uniquely available in Taiwan. [00:46:24] Speaker 02: Firstly, frankly, who was YC Wang? [00:46:27] Speaker 02: How come he had three wives? [00:46:29] Speaker 02: What did he think of his wives? [00:46:30] Speaker 02: Was he the type of person who was transferring assets away in order to deprive his wives of spousal shares? [00:46:37] Speaker 04: Why don't we talk to his financial manager and the people who set up the trust? [00:46:40] Speaker 02: No, you would talk to the people in Taiwan with whom he... With a gossip, all right? [00:46:44] Speaker 04: Pardon me? [00:46:44] Speaker 04: What you're looking at is he transferred this. [00:46:48] Speaker 04: What were the reasons that he explained to the people he asked to stand up for Trump? [00:46:54] Speaker 02: And the people that he interacted with on a daily basis were the people in Taiwan at FPG who were the people who were his business colleagues and his friends and his family members. [00:47:05] Speaker 02: all of whom are over there, there's no allegation that there was any conversation about the purpose of setting up these trusts with the people who established them. [00:47:13] Speaker 02: And in fact, when you look at the list of people that my friend has come up with, his list of people who are in this district is limited to six people. [00:47:22] Speaker 02: In fact, it's really double counting because he counts the law firm that set up the trusts as well as the partners in that law firm that set up the trust. [00:47:29] Speaker 02: This district has virtually no [00:47:32] Speaker 02: involvement in this matter, save for, as Judge Boasberg found, the mere fact that the trusts were set up here. [00:47:39] Speaker 02: The rest of this case, the entirety, is located in Taiwan. [00:47:43] Speaker 02: And that's why Judge Boasberg concluded, as he did, that this case belonged in Taiwan. [00:47:48] Speaker 02: And just one, because I know my time is well up, the court was correct in stressing that under [00:47:57] Speaker 02: Gilbert and under Piper and in accordance with this court's precedent, it is sufficient for the court to have determined that its own processes would be substantially burdened and inconvenienced by the retention of this case in this forum. [00:48:14] Speaker 02: The courts clearly in BPA and in Jackson, this court has said that it is appropriate to look at [00:48:22] Speaker 02: whether the court's own inconvenience is so substantial that that would justify this mistake. [00:48:28] Speaker 04: Well, New Jersey said he was in a very busy docket. [00:48:31] Speaker 04: He was in... New Jersey said he was in a busy... He did not say that. [00:48:35] Speaker 02: He did not say that. [00:48:36] Speaker 02: Thank you. [00:48:38] Speaker 03: Thank you. [00:48:39] Speaker 03: Who is in charge of the BVI companies? [00:48:43] Speaker 03: Yeah. [00:48:44] Speaker 02: Who's in charge of them? [00:48:45] Speaker 03: Yeah. [00:48:46] Speaker 03: Who runs those? [00:48:47] Speaker 02: It was this hung... Well, there was an individual, Mr. Hung, who was the owner of those companies. [00:48:55] Speaker 02: He is deceased now. [00:48:57] Speaker 02: Right. [00:48:57] Speaker 02: So he would not be a witness. [00:48:58] Speaker 03: Who now runs those companies? [00:49:00] Speaker 03: Do you know? [00:49:00] Speaker 02: Well, the BBI companies or the assets of the BBI companies were transferred into the trusts. [00:49:06] Speaker 02: I'm actually sitting here today not sure who runs them presently. [00:49:11] Speaker 04: All right. [00:49:14] Speaker 04: Thank you. [00:49:18] Speaker 01: Your Honor, a few points. [00:49:27] Speaker 01: The first relatively minor point is my friend on the other side said that they're now arguing that the Taiwan high court ruling does have a presidential effect. [00:49:38] Speaker 01: their experts specifically said, JA 2180, JA 2181, the high court ruling does not have binding precedential effect. [00:49:46] Speaker 01: So what they said was incorrect. [00:49:49] Speaker 01: Also, as to the amount of the funds, everyone agrees there was $1.7 billion of Taiwan assets. [00:49:57] Speaker 01: This case is over $2.162 billion. [00:50:00] Speaker 01: No matter what happened, Yalon was shorted. [00:50:05] Speaker 01: If those $2.162 billion were part of the settlement agreement, the amount that she would have received would have been double, more than double, actually. [00:50:17] Speaker 01: So no matter what, she was shorted. [00:50:22] Speaker 01: Another issue is, obviously, they knew from day one that these claims were asserted under Taiwan law. [00:50:32] Speaker 01: Absolutely no question. [00:50:35] Speaker 01: If it was so oppressive and vexatious for them to defend here, why didn't they move to dismiss on day one? [00:50:44] Speaker 01: They didn't. [00:50:44] Speaker 04: So I guess, counsel, you know the law on that as well as I do. [00:50:50] Speaker 04: So you asked us to adopt two rules, but they would be new rules. [00:50:55] Speaker 04: So given that, at least at the time they filed the motion, we hadn't held it. [00:51:01] Speaker 04: it would be untimely and therefore had to be necessarily denied or dismissed. [00:51:10] Speaker 04: What do you say more generally though to the argument that a district court judge could have agreed with your view of the case but didn't? [00:51:23] Speaker 04: So you in your brief make an effort to show errors of law, but basically you have to show [00:51:32] Speaker 04: a clear abuse of discretion in the balancing of the factors. [00:51:37] Speaker 04: And in our discussion, as I understood it, you were suggesting that the district court had given too much weight or inappropriate weight to the public factors. [00:51:49] Speaker 04: Is that your basic argument? [00:51:51] Speaker 01: Well, it also failed to give proper deference to the plaintiff's choice of forum. [00:51:56] Speaker 01: Either one of those, in our view, is sufficient to require reversal. [00:52:01] Speaker 01: And you take them together, [00:52:02] Speaker 01: and you take them with their delay, and you're way, way beyond the point at which it would be remotely appropriate to dismiss. [00:52:11] Speaker 01: But we think that any one of those errors alone is sufficient to require reversal. [00:52:21] Speaker 03: Is that national tax administration document that you assert establishes Yuelan as the sole spouse? [00:52:30] Speaker 03: Is that in the record? [00:52:32] Speaker 01: No, I do not believe it is in the record. [00:52:36] Speaker 03: Why not? [00:52:39] Speaker 01: Well, it was alleged in the complaint. [00:52:42] Speaker 01: It was a complaint. [00:52:44] Speaker 01: So I mean, they made a threshold motion to dismiss in the complaint. [00:52:48] Speaker 01: So there was no evidence in the record to put it there. [00:52:54] Speaker 01: Or there was no occasion to put it into the record. [00:53:01] Speaker 01: You know, the other issue is that in Piper, the court said, speaking specifically, Judge Rogers, to your question about the public factors, in Piper, the court said, under Gilbert, dismissal will ordinarily be appropriate where the trial in the plaintiff's chosen form imposes a heavy burden on the defendant or the court and where the plaintiff is unable to offer any specific reasons of convenience supporting his choice. [00:53:31] Speaker 01: We have provided specific reasons supporting our choice. [00:53:36] Speaker 01: First of all, obviously, it was the only place where we could have sued. [00:53:39] Speaker 01: But also, the plaintiff's access to evidence is substantially greater in this forum than in Taiwan. [00:53:49] Speaker 03: How do we think about that, though? [00:53:50] Speaker 03: Because Taiwan, as its court system, I don't think it's been held to be inadequate. [00:53:59] Speaker 03: And some of your arguments seems to [00:54:02] Speaker 03: be saying, well, but we couldn't get, because of the nature of how adjudication is done there, we couldn't get access through out of jurisdiction depositions or the like, because that quote wouldn't be interested in it. [00:54:15] Speaker 03: Isn't that something we can't actually consider? [00:54:17] Speaker 01: I mean, I don't think so, because I think that question, they're two separate questions. [00:54:23] Speaker 01: One is the adequacy of the forum. [00:54:25] Speaker 03: It's a civil court. [00:54:26] Speaker 03: It has a whole different investigative process. [00:54:30] Speaker 03: And you're not criticizing that. [00:54:31] Speaker 01: No, what we're saying is the factor, the access to evidence, is less, as a matter of fact, there than it is here. [00:54:42] Speaker 01: And that's a private factor, not the adequacy of the forum. [00:54:46] Speaker 03: And remind us exactly why you don't think you have access to evidence there. [00:54:51] Speaker 01: Because witnesses, non-party witnesses in Taiwan are not required to produce evidence. [00:55:00] Speaker 01: According to them, they can be compelled to serve as witnesses. [00:55:04] Speaker 01: There's evidence in the PBI, clearly, that could never be compelled in Taiwan. [00:55:11] Speaker 03: But why isn't that just making a comparative point about process that the Taiwan court system believes is adequate, that you don't [00:55:20] Speaker 01: Well, it's not just that we don't prefer it. [00:55:24] Speaker 01: The question is what jurisdiction best serves the interests of justice. [00:55:31] Speaker 03: Typically, when we look at the access to evidence, we look at people are here, people are there. [00:55:37] Speaker 03: The airplane in Piper is in Scotland. [00:55:39] Speaker 03: It's not in California or Pennsylvania. [00:55:42] Speaker 03: And you're making a different claim, which is in a way a comparative [00:55:48] Speaker 03: legal process claims saying that the kinds of processes that the Taiwan courts for their own purposes recognize as adequate that don't involve getting evidence from the FBI or don't involve compelling non-party witnesses, you don't like those. [00:56:02] Speaker 03: They're not going to work for you. [00:56:04] Speaker 03: And that's a different kind of access to evidence claim. [00:56:07] Speaker 01: Well, also though, the witnesses that they say they would call, they've not shown that those witnesses would not voluntarily appear here. [00:56:18] Speaker 01: I understand that. [00:56:20] Speaker 01: So they can't even meet their [00:56:23] Speaker 01: their threshold burden to argue that Taiwan is, you know, that the private factors favor Taiwan. [00:56:31] Speaker 01: They can't do that. [00:56:32] Speaker 03: Well, the courts do take into account costs of bringing people as well as the availability [00:56:38] Speaker 03: compulsory service. [00:56:39] Speaker 01: I mean, I would respectfully say with respect to cost, counsel have incurred more cost probably in the last day than it would cost to bring all of the witnesses combined here. [00:56:51] Speaker 01: And then let's not forget about the petition for certiorari, which frankly probably had about a 1 in 10,000 chance of succeeding. [00:56:58] Speaker 01: I don't know how much that cost. [00:57:00] Speaker 01: And I also think that's probably the only case in history of forum nonconvenience [00:57:06] Speaker 01: where a party has sought to invoke the jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court on another issue before they even once asserted forum nonconvenience. [00:57:20] Speaker 01: I can't imagine that's ever happened before. [00:57:23] Speaker 01: Anything further? [00:57:26] Speaker 01: Only that I think as a matter of justice, it would truly be a perversion [00:57:35] Speaker 01: of the forum nonconvenience doctrine to send this case to Taiwan after all these years where the evidence, where the plaintiffs would not have access to the evidence necessary to prove their case and where these defendants are not genuinely prejudiced in having to defend here. [00:58:00] Speaker 04: Thank you, Your Honor.