[00:00:01] Speaker 00:
Case number 18-5232, Grand Canyon Trust Appellant vs. David Longley Bernhardt, Secretary of the Interior, in his official capacity, head out.

[00:00:13] Speaker 00:
Mr. Keneay for the Appellant, Mr. Kempfenroth for the Appellant.

[00:00:21] Speaker 03:
Good morning, and may it please the Court.

[00:00:23] Speaker 03:
My name is Matt Keneay, representing Appellant Grand Canyon Trust, and I'd like to reserve two minutes for rebuttal.

[00:00:28] Speaker 03:
This case presents the question of whether a plaintiff in a Freedom of Information Act suit prevails and is thus eligible for attorney fees, where the facts show an accelerated document production after suit was filed, after the agencies had missed both statutory and then promised deadlines after the Grand Canyon Trust attempted to secure the requested documents before the suit was filed.

[00:00:49] Speaker 03:
Now, the standards the plaintiffs must meet in this case is whether it's more probable than not that the suit accelerated production.

[00:00:56] Speaker 03:
It does not require absolute proof.

[00:00:57] Speaker 02:
That was the standard below.

[00:01:00] Speaker 02:
But on review, the district court ruled against you on that issue.

[00:01:05] Speaker 02:
So on review, you have to show that finding is clearly erroneous.

[00:01:10] Speaker 03:
This court has held that the review of the eligibility prong is a de novo review.

[00:01:16] Speaker 03:
And it's not unlike perhaps say a summary judgment where you have a set of facts and you're applying it to legal standards.

[00:01:24] Speaker 02:
We have one series of cases that loosely say eligibility determinations are reviewed de novo.

[00:01:34] Speaker 02:
We have another set of cases that say they are reviewed for clear error.

[00:01:40] Speaker 02:
But when you drill down and look at what's going on, every case that I could find where the specific issue before the court was causation or not under the catalyst theory, we reviewed for clear error.

[00:02:00] Speaker 02:
And all of the cases that you rely on that say de novo, the issue before the court is really something else.

[00:02:08] Speaker 03:
One, I would say that even if the review is for clear error that we prevail, because one of the things the district court did here, especially relying on Senator Kyle's remarks in the legislative history, was to view the

[00:02:21] Speaker 03:
element of eligibility through the lens of, well, we really shouldn't punish an agency who acts quickly or settles a case, whereas the language of the amendment, as well as the legislative history, say exactly the opposite, that no, you know, the committee report describes this exact situation where the agency fails.

[00:02:40] Speaker 05:
That's tough for a man about the language of the amendment, which you just mentioned.

[00:02:45] Speaker 05:
In that language, where there is a requirement that you even have to prove causation?

[00:02:52] Speaker 03:
Well, I would agree with you, Your Honor.

[00:02:54] Speaker 03:
There's no language in there saying it.

[00:02:55] Speaker 05:
It says that the government's change of position has to be voluntary, which doesn't sound like it's being caused by you.

[00:03:03] Speaker 05:
And second of all, the only other requirement is that your complaint not be insubstantial.

[00:03:10] Speaker 05:
So that seems to me to read out of any – I know we've got precedent, but it seems to me to read out a requirement that you even show causation.

[00:03:19] Speaker 05:
And that makes good sense, because under the government's theory here, how do you prove causation?

[00:03:25] Speaker 05:
What do you do?

[00:03:26] Speaker 05:
Call it – and you mentioned this – take depositions of the government's attorneys and ask them why they changed their position and decided to give up – I mean, it's all attorney-client privilege.

[00:03:37] Speaker 03:
I think that's absolutely true.

[00:03:38] Speaker 03:
And at least in some of these cases where you have a finding of no causation, the agency at least files declarations from the agency personnel.

[00:03:45] Speaker 01:
Can we go back on the causation problem?

[00:03:48] Speaker 01:
Your brief says and your brief said below that you have to prove causation.

[00:03:52] Speaker 01:
You don't disagree that that's what you have to prove?

[00:03:55] Speaker 03:
Well, I would agree with Judge Randolph that the statute and it was amended.

[00:03:58] Speaker 01:
I'm not asking that.

[00:03:58] Speaker 01:
I'm asking what you argued below and what you argued to us in the brief, not what you're arguing now in response to Judge Randolph's question.

[00:04:07] Speaker 01:
You argued you had to prove causation, and you argued that you did prove causation.

[00:04:12] Speaker 01:
Is there any place in any pleading where you argued that you had no need to plead causation at all?

[00:04:17] Speaker 03:
No, Your Honor.

[00:04:19] Speaker 03:
I recognize the language of the cases of this Court which said that the 2000 Amendment

[00:04:26] Speaker 03:
undid the Buchanan removal of causation and so reinstated it, which I think is true generally.

[00:04:32] Speaker 03:
So, you know, I didn't really feel free in the briefs to argue that because, and also we did show sufficiently causation.

[00:04:42] Speaker 03:
But I do think it's a larger question that should be addressed because the language itself does not talk about causation.

[00:04:48] Speaker 03:
It just talks about unilateral change in position.

[00:04:52] Speaker 03:
Now, if the agencies had been planning the pace as to whether we did show causation or not, the pace of production,

[00:04:59] Speaker 03:
They could have told the plaintiffs before they filed suit that we actually asked agencies, OK, you've missed these deadlines.

[00:05:06] Speaker 03:
Can you please tell us when you're going to produce?

[00:05:10] Speaker 03:
And the BLM refused to say, and the Office of the Secretary said, well, it's going to be at least two months or whenever our lawyers get around to it.

[00:05:17] Speaker 01:
Can I just say, this is a question about fact, if I have the facts correctly.

[00:05:21] Speaker 01:
So in October 2016, BLM predicted it would take about a year.

[00:05:27] Speaker 01:
And it did take about a year, including after you filed your law.

[00:05:31] Speaker 01:
It took less than a year, I guess.

[00:05:32] Speaker 01:
It took less than a year.

[00:05:33] Speaker 01:
It took slightly less than a year, right?

[00:05:36] Speaker 01:
a couple months less than a year.

[00:05:37] Speaker 01:
So it's within its prediction about a year.

[00:05:40] Speaker 01:
It's within the time it predicted before the lawsuit.

[00:05:44] Speaker 03:
I would say not because, you know, the deadlines under the Freedom of Information Act are 30 days, and that was two months quicker than they said.

[00:05:51] Speaker 01:
I'm not asking about the deadlines.

[00:05:53] Speaker 01:
I'm asking about... You said that they refused to give you any prediction, and I understand the fact to be that BLM said

[00:06:06] Speaker 01:
And this is reported in the defendant's answer, which I do not understand you to be disputing, paragraph 54.

[00:06:14] Speaker 01:
Defendants admit that on or about October 6, 2016, the BLM spoke with the plaintiff by telephone and said it would take roughly one year to finalize the plaintiff's response.

[00:06:27] Speaker 01:
Right?

[00:06:28] Speaker 01:
That's the fact.

[00:06:28] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:06:28] Speaker 01:
That's right.

[00:06:29] Speaker 01:
And that was before you filed the lawsuit.

[00:06:31] Speaker 03:
That was before we filed the lawsuit.

[00:06:32] Speaker 01:
And after you filed the lawsuit,

[00:06:34] Speaker 01:
It was, in fact, produced within one year from roughly one year from October 2016.

[00:06:41] Speaker 03:
Well, they said it was going to take at least a year.

[00:06:43] Speaker 03:
So we have to show that the lawsuit sped up production.

[00:06:46] Speaker 01:
I think that shows.

[00:06:46] Speaker 01:
This one says it would take roughly one year.

[00:06:49] Speaker 01:
The at least part comes to the Office of the Secretary.

[00:06:52] Speaker 01:
I'm only reading from paragraph 54 of the answer.

[00:06:56] Speaker 01:
Is there a different?

[00:06:57] Speaker 01:
This is a telephone call.

[00:06:58] Speaker 01:
Is there some other memorization of the telephone call or anything?

[00:07:02] Speaker 01:
There's not.

[00:07:03] Speaker ?:
OK.

[00:07:04] Speaker 01:
So with respect to the Office of the Secretary, that is in your complaint, paragraph 43, and that's the one that on May 3rd, 2017, the Office of the Secretary informed the trust that it would require at least two months to complete its review, also stated that you probably would take much longer.

[00:07:28] Speaker 01:
And how long did it take from May 3rd, 2017?

[00:07:32] Speaker 03:
About, it was three to six weeks after the complaint was filed on May 9th, so I had another week to that.

[00:07:38] Speaker 01:
So it was released, the last documents were released in June of 2017, June 13th.

[00:07:46] Speaker 01:
The statement was made in May, so it's about a month and a half.

[00:07:51] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:07:55] Speaker 03:
which I think shows an accelerated production.

[00:07:57] Speaker 03:
They said at least two months and whenever our lawyers get around to it.

[00:08:01] Speaker 05:
And it was two months, as I recall.

[00:08:04] Speaker 05:
This was just a telephone call, right?

[00:08:06] Speaker 05:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:08:07] Speaker 05:
So maybe parsing it is not the best way to approach it.

[00:08:12] Speaker 05:
But I thought it was two months plus, whatever time it takes our attorneys to review.

[00:08:19] Speaker 01:
That's right, Your Honor.

[00:08:20] Speaker 01:
It was.

[00:08:21] Speaker 01:
I'm just reading again just from your complaint, since that's the only information we have.

[00:08:25] Speaker 01:
also stated that the review probably would take much longer because the Office of the Secretary could not dictate the work schedule of its attorneys.

[00:08:33] Speaker 01:
Yes.

[00:08:34] Speaker 05:
And they withheld, at that point, were withholding about 8,000 documents?

[00:08:39] Speaker 03:
Yeah, before the suit was filed, you know, one agency produced 12 documents, the other produced 220, and one of the thousands of documents didn't come until right after the suit was filed.

[00:08:49] Speaker 05:
Right, and we got a supplemental

[00:08:53] Speaker 05:
filing from the government, which said, well, the reason we did that or suggested the reason we did it is because of the possibility that there were third parties that had an interest.

[00:09:04] Speaker 05:
But the third parties only had a couple hundred documents, right?

[00:09:08] Speaker 03:
Right.

[00:09:08] Speaker 03:
That was just a small segment of the documents that had to go through clearance to the coal companies that submitted to the agency.

[00:09:14] Speaker 05:
Right.

[00:09:14] Speaker 05:
So that doesn't explain the withholding of 8,000 or whatever it was.

[00:09:21] Speaker 03:
Yes, and I still only have one minute left.

[00:09:23] Speaker 03:
I'd like to reserve it for rebuttal.

[00:09:24] Speaker 02:
Well, can I just ask, do you have any case where the change in position is just an accelerated production?

[00:09:37] Speaker 02:
I would think the typical case is the agency claims an exemption and then under the threat of litigation or through a judicial order, they produce.

[00:09:50] Speaker 03:
I mean, that's a common occurrence, but I would say it's probably even more common that you have this sort of deadline suit where the failure to provide the documents at all.

[00:10:01] Speaker 02:
What does the case law say about when, let's just assume I agree with the Chief Judge's suggestion that this is at most a moderate acceleration of a predicted deadline

[00:10:19] Speaker 02:
that was made under a high degree of uncertainty.

[00:10:22] Speaker 02:
It's not clear to me that that qualifies as a change in position because they do slightly better than they thought.

[00:10:31] Speaker 03:
Discussed it in our briefs, but the Tarrick case and the Epic case both describe an acceleration as a change of position.

[00:10:40] Speaker 01:
Those are both district court cases?

[00:10:42] Speaker 03:
Those are both district court cases, but they... Are there any court of appeals cases?

[00:10:45] Speaker 01:
You know, I know there aren't any in ours.

[00:10:46] Speaker 01:
Are there other circuits?

[00:10:48] Speaker 03:
Right.

[00:10:48] Speaker 03:
I would say the... from...

[00:10:54] Speaker 03:
The public citizen health research group of this court from 1990, it's an EJA case, Equal Access to Justice Act, but it talks about acceleration of regulation, promulgation, being enough.

[00:11:07] Speaker 01:
Is that a case about the definition of prevailing party or about discretionary authorization?

[00:11:14] Speaker 03:
No, it's prevailing party.

[00:11:15] Speaker 03:
The Equal Access to Justice Act uses similar language in terms of saying prevailing party.

[00:11:20] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:11:21] Speaker 05:
More questions?

[00:11:23] Speaker 03:
All right.

[00:11:29] Speaker 04:
Good morning.

[00:11:29] Speaker 04:
Peter Faffenroth for the government.

[00:11:34] Speaker 04:
As the court recognized, the burden is on the plaintiff.

[00:11:37] Speaker 04:
And it is binding law in the circuit that there is a requirement that the plaintiff prove causation.

[00:11:44] Speaker 04:
And the first question is, was the lawsuit necessary for the documents to be released?

[00:11:51] Speaker 04:
And the second question is, is there a causal nexus between some action of the plaintiff

[00:11:59] Speaker 04:
through the litigation and the government's change in position.

[00:12:03] Speaker 04:
And respectfully, the plaintiff fails at the first step, but also additionally fails at the second step.

[00:12:11] Speaker 04:
Everything that happened in this case would have happened administratively if it had simply been allowed to play out.

[00:12:19] Speaker 02:
If we put aside the precedent, and I realize that's a big if,

[00:12:24] Speaker 02:
Where, just as an original matter, where do you get the causation requirement from the statute itself?

[00:12:35] Speaker 04:
The legislative history from the statute itself says, if not insubstantial, if the claim is not insubstantial.

[00:12:47] Speaker 04:
That actually, I think, supports both the notion that the district court should have discretion, and secondly, along the lines of Pierce from the Supreme Court in the IJA context, and secondly, is not insubstantial.

[00:13:02] Speaker 04:
What's added to the statute in order to ensure that it is not a default, that fees are awarded,

[00:13:13] Speaker 02:
Well, that just the not insubstantial is just an assessment of the merits of the claim.

[00:13:23] Speaker 02:
It doesn't go to why the documents were released, whether because of the

[00:13:31] Speaker 02:
litigation or for some other reason.

[00:13:33] Speaker 04:
Well, I think it's sufficiently broad, and it really is not defined in the context of the statute, but it's sufficiently broad to encompass the notion that the lawsuit was not, in fact, necessary for the release of the records.

[00:13:47] Speaker 04:
There are many contexts in which a lawsuit is necessary and does precipitate a change.

[00:13:52] Speaker 05:
For instance, where a... You can give us examples where... Yeah.

[00:13:57] Speaker 05:
But how can you... I don't understand your answer.

[00:14:00] Speaker 05:
that you determine whether a lawsuit's necessary on the basis of what?

[00:14:07] Speaker 04:
On the basis of whether or not, on the record, it appears that but for the lawsuit, things would have turned out the same way.

[00:14:15] Speaker 05:
Where's the but for?

[00:14:20] Speaker 05:
But let me follow up here.

[00:14:22] Speaker 05:
You said, well, they would have gotten these documents in the normal course because when the administrative process played out.

[00:14:30] Speaker 05:
How do we know that?

[00:14:32] Speaker 04:
We know that from the fact that the agency was clearly acting in good faith by being in regular contact with the requester from day, I think one of them responded, three days after the request came in.

[00:14:44] Speaker 05:
How do we know that the agency was acting in good faith as opposed to dragging its feet?

[00:14:51] Speaker 05:
The agency, you know, unfortunately... Or the deadlines were, you know, within the office of the secretary, there's one deadline after another that was missed.

[00:15:01] Speaker 05:
And... What's the reason for that?

[00:15:04] Speaker 05:
Why were the deadlines missed?

[00:15:07] Speaker 04:
As the record shows, there was, I believe on March 20th, the records were ready to go as far as the FOIA staff were concerned, but they had gone to the office of the solicitor for

[00:15:18] Speaker 05:
Preclearance Review, and that review actually added value because, for instance... Who in Interior decided to finally disclose the documents on the date that they were disclosed?

[00:15:33] Speaker 04:
The department?

[00:15:34] Speaker 04:
I mean, I don't have a name.

[00:15:35] Speaker 04:
I have the release letters here, Your Honor, and those would be the person on the FOIA staff who signed those release letters is responsible for the release.

[00:15:44] Speaker 05:
The director of BLM that made the decision?

[00:15:48] Speaker 05:
to the solicitor?

[00:15:51] Speaker 04:
These are the agencies themselves.

[00:15:53] Speaker 04:
Typically their chief information officer, the person signing on behalf of BLM, is Cynthia Moses-Ned, the acting chief of the Division of Intergovernmental and External Affairs.

[00:16:05] Speaker 05:
Did we know what her reason was for disclosing the document in the time that she did?

[00:16:13] Speaker 04:
We don't.

[00:16:14] Speaker 04:
We know, based upon a very substantial record, that the records had to go through multiple levels of review, including line-by-line review.

[00:16:22] Speaker 05:
That was my question.

[00:16:23] Speaker 05:
My question is, do we know why she disclosed the documents on the date that they were turned over?

[00:16:32] Speaker 05:
Do we know why, on that date?

[00:16:34] Speaker 04:
Because they were ready to go on that date.

[00:16:36] Speaker 04:
the records suggest that they were, you know, they were done.

[00:16:41] Speaker 04:
They released them in, for instance, BLM released three tranches, one in June, one in July, and one in August.

[00:16:47] Speaker 05:
What if she said, well, you know, we've got this lawsuit and we don't want to waste our resources defending this lawsuit, so let's get these documents out before the judge has to issue any kind of orders or judgment?

[00:17:00] Speaker 05:
What if that were her reason?

[00:17:03] Speaker 04:
I'm not going to speculate, Your Honor.

[00:17:05] Speaker 04:
There's nothing in the record to suggest that.

[00:17:08] Speaker 04:
Well, there's nothing in the record to suggest otherwise.

[00:17:11] Speaker 04:
To the contrary, Your Honor.

[00:17:13] Speaker 04:
BLM received the request, I believe, on August 1, 2016?

[00:17:21] Speaker 04:
August 2.

[00:17:22] Speaker 04:
And BLM acknowledged receipt on August 16, 2016.

[00:17:29] Speaker 04:
And then in October,

[00:17:33] Speaker 04:
October 10th BLM told the trust who would take roughly one year to complete the FOIA request by the way They didn't say in October that it would take roughly one year from October.

[00:17:42] Speaker 04:
There's nothing in the record to support that reading to the contrary and

[00:17:45] Speaker 04:
Typically agencies gauge their release time from when they actually receive the request.

[00:17:50] Speaker 04:
So the release was made finally from the BLM records on August 31, 2017, which was... Go ahead.

[00:17:57] Speaker 05:
Put aside BLM.

[00:17:58] Speaker 05:
Yes.

[00:17:59] Speaker 05:
What about the Office of the Secretary?

[00:18:03] Speaker 05:
If the Office of the Secretary accelerated production after missing deadline after deadline, then isn't that enough to warrant attorney's fees?

[00:18:14] Speaker 04:
Respectfully no, Your Honor.

[00:18:16] Speaker 04:
Unfortunately, processing a vast number of records takes a lot of time.

[00:18:25] Speaker 04:
And things come up particularly when you get lawyers involved.

[00:18:27] Speaker 04:
For instance, we see the Exemption 4 outreach to the coal companies.

[00:18:32] Speaker 04:
And in fact, Exemption 4 was a withholding basis in the final tranche of Office of Secretary Records that went out.

[00:18:42] Speaker 04:
At least one of the call companies did object to the provision of such material.

[00:18:47] Speaker 05:
Well, we've been over that.

[00:18:48] Speaker 05:
I mean, there were 8,000 documents or thousands of documents, and you're talking about a couple hundred.

[00:18:55] Speaker 04:
A lot of the withholdings were a deliberative process.

[00:18:59] Speaker 04:
Many of the withholdings were attorney-client privilege.

[00:19:02] Speaker 04:
There were also Exemption 6 invocations in order to protect personal privacy.

[00:19:06] Speaker 04:
This is a matter that was subject to substantial public comment.

[00:19:11] Speaker 04:
And so when the public is commenting, we're not releasing the personal addresses of the commenters and the personal email addresses of the commenters.

[00:19:20] Speaker 04:
That does require line-by-line review.

[00:19:23] Speaker 04:
And we're talking about 65 pages in total here, 65,000 pages in total.

[00:19:27] Speaker 04:
And that takes real time.

[00:19:28] Speaker 04:
If you ask for all records about

[00:19:31] Speaker 04:
of substantial regulatory proceeding that doesn't happen within 30 days or 20 days or 60 days.

[00:19:37] Speaker 05:
Yeah, I understand all that.

[00:19:40] Speaker 05:
And therefore, the consequence of what you've just described, the burden on the agencies.

[00:19:50] Speaker 05:
clearly aware of that, is that the agencies in determining what to produce and when have to prioritize.

[00:19:57] Speaker 05:
They have to set priorities.

[00:19:59] Speaker 05:
And maybe one of the ways they set priorities is if they have a lawsuit facing them.

[00:20:04] Speaker 05:
We'd better get that one out as opposed to spending time on the other couple thousand that we have in the piles on our desk.

[00:20:13] Speaker 04:
Your Honor, I get questions like that from agencies, and my advice to them is

[00:20:20] Speaker 04:
Follow Open America and do it first in, first out, unless there's an expedition request that is granted.

[00:20:27] Speaker 04:
Because otherwise, you do potentially become subject to fees.

[00:20:32] Speaker 04:
It's unfortunate, frankly, that as this Court has recognized, there are many incentives for people to come to Court in order to try and jump the queue.

[00:20:43] Speaker 04:
But by virtue of doing that, agencies, it disrupts the entire process.

[00:20:48] Speaker 04:
And this court recognized way back in 1976 in open America the importance of fairness to all requesters by following a first in first out approach.

[00:20:59] Speaker 04:
If the court has nothing further, I'd ask that the decision be affirmed.

[00:21:04] Speaker 01:
We stole your extra minute, so we'll give it back to you.

[00:21:06] Speaker 01:
In fact, we'll give you two minutes.

[00:21:07] Speaker 01:
How's that?

[00:21:10] Speaker 03:
I just wanted to clear up something, Chief Judge Gardner, that you asked about, and that was whether it was a bounty or at least a year.

[00:21:17] Speaker 03:
The appendix page 40, well, appendix page 15, paragraph 54.

[00:21:25] Speaker 03:
So that does say at least a year.

[00:21:26] Speaker 03:
So I just wanted to point that out.

[00:21:28] Speaker 03:
I don't know if I answered clearly.

[00:21:29] Speaker 01:
No, then I misread it.

[00:21:30] Speaker 01:
I'm sorry.

[00:21:31] Speaker 01:
What did it say?

[00:21:32] Speaker 03:
The appendix page 15.

[00:21:34] Speaker 01:
Which?

[00:21:35] Speaker 03:
It's from the answer.

[00:21:38] Speaker 01:
paragraph fifty-four at appendix page fifteen paragraph fifty-four yeah we're talking about yes uh... i have an appendix page thirty-three paragraph fifty-four says it would take roughly one year we have different appendix page fifteen what's the difference between there's one thing thirty-three

[00:22:13] Speaker 01:
is the answer.

[00:22:16] Speaker 01:
Paragraph 54, the answer, right?

[00:22:19] Speaker 03:
Well, yeah.

[00:22:19] Speaker 03:
So plaintiff said it would take at least a year.

[00:22:24] Speaker 03:
And the defendant said roughly one year.

[00:22:27] Speaker 03:
But it didn't.

[00:22:28] Speaker 03:
So anyway.

[00:22:30] Speaker 01:
We'll go with at least a year.

[00:22:31] Speaker 03:
Fair enough.

[00:22:33] Speaker 03:
I wanted to point out the status report at appendix page 40, where the BLM said that their search was still underway.

[00:22:41] Speaker 03:
which shows that they had not processed much of the request at least.

[00:22:48] Speaker 03:
They were still searching for records by the time when the complaint was filed.

[00:22:54] Speaker 03:
And the Office of Secretary never made a prediction about when it would comply until that week before the lawsuit was filed where they said at least two months

[00:23:06] Speaker 03:
or whenever its lawyers were ready to.

[00:23:08] Speaker 01:
But since the question is, did the lawsuit cause it, isn't the right thing to ask what was the last prediction before the lawsuit?

[00:23:18] Speaker 03:
Right.

[00:23:18] Speaker 03:
So the last prediction before the lawsuit was at least two months, and whenever our lawyers get around to doing it.

[00:23:25] Speaker 03:
And then the lawsuit was filed, and they were provided within three to six weeks of the lawsuit being filed.

[00:23:30] Speaker 01:
It doesn't quite say whenever our lawyers get around to it.

[00:23:35] Speaker 01:
it said the review probably would take much longer because they would have to consult with the lawyers.

[00:23:41] Speaker 03:
Yes.

[00:23:42] Speaker 03:
I'm sorry if I used too much hyperbole, but I think that's roughly the same.

[00:23:46] Speaker 03:
It was giving no deadline.

[00:23:48] Speaker 03:
It was saying that it could have taken a year.

[00:23:50] Speaker 03:
We don't know, but we filed the suit, and then there you are with the production within three to six weeks.

[00:24:01] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:24:02] Speaker 03:
Any other questions?

[00:24:02] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:24:02] Speaker 03:
OK, thank you.

[00:24:03] Speaker 03:
We'll take the matter under submission.