{"id":"court_ctb_949_0","court":"CTB","case_no":"22-50073","doc_number":949,"sub_number":0,"doc_type":"ORDER","filed_date":null,"title":"UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT BRIDGEPORT DIVISION | -------------------------------------------","summary_zh":null,"summary_en":null,"body_en":"## **UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT BRIDGEPORT DIVISION**\n\n| ----------------------------------------------------------- | x                                      |  |\n|-------------------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------|--|\n| In re:                                                      | :<br>:<br>Chapter 11                   |  |\n| HO WAN KWOK,                                                | :<br>:<br>Case No. 22-50073 (JAM)<br>: |  |\n| Debtor.1                                                    | :<br>:                                 |  |\n| ----------------------------------------------------------- | x                                      |  |\n\n## **REPLY IN SUPPORT OF MOTION OF CHAPTER 11 TRUSTEE FOR ENTRY OF ORDER AUTHORIZING COMPLIANCE WITH RULE 2004 SUBPOENAS AND ENFORCING CONSENT ORDER REGARDING CONTROL OF ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE AND WORK PRODUCT PROTECTION RELATED TO RULE 2004 SUBPOENAED DOCUMENTS AND INFORMATION**\n\nLuc A. Despins, as the appointed Chapter 11 Trustee to the Debtor's estate (the \"Trustee\"), by and through his undersigned counsel, respectfully submits this reply (the \"Reply\") (i) in further support of his motion [ECF No. 898] (the \"Enforcement Motion\"), and (ii) in response to the Debtor's objection to the Enforcement Motion [ECF No. 939] (the \"Objection\"). In support of this Reply, the Trustee respectfully states as follows:\n\n## **ARGUMENT**\n\n1. The Court entered the Privilege Order<sup>2</sup> on September 14, 2022. Paragraph 7 of that order provides that if the Debtor wishes to withhold documents from production on the grounds that their disclosure would cause him personal harm, \"the Debtor's counsel\" (Zeisler & Zeisler) must produce a privilege log within 10 days of the deadline to respond to the applicable\n\n<sup>1</sup> Although the Debtor's legal name is Ho Wan Kwok, he is also known as Guo Wengui, Miles Guo, and Miles Kwok, as well as numerous other aliases. The last four digits of the Debtor's taxpayer identification number are 9595.\n\n<sup>2</sup> [ECF No. 856]. Capitalized terms not otherwise defined herein have the meanings given to such terms in the Enforcement Motion.\n\nsubpoena. Brown Rudnick's and Verdolino's deadline to respond to their subpoenas was September 16, 2022, which set the Privilege Log Deadline at September 26, 2022. The Debtor's counsel, however, did not produce a privilege log by that deadline, nor did counsel move for an extension of time. Because the Privilege Log Deadline has come and gone without action by the Debtor, the Court can and should enforce the Privilege Order and direct that the documents of Brown Rudnick and Verdolino be produced immediately. This ends the analysis.\n\n2. In his Objection, the Debtor asks for more time and, apparently, for the Court to simply ignore its own prior orders. But enforcing the Court's prior orders, including the Privilege Order, is the only way to maintain order in this case and prevent the Debtor from brazenly flouting his obligations to the Trustee and to the Court. The Debtor contends he has never sought to delay the Trustee's investigation, but the record is clearly to the contrary. This case has now been pending for eight months. The Trustee was appointed more than three months ago, and this Court entered the Rule 2004 Orders nearly two months ago, on August 16, 2022. The Trustee served his subpoenas on Brown Rudnick and Verdolino on August 17, 2022. Since then, it has been a painful process—to put it mildly—to get any action out of the Debtor.\n\n3. The Debtor initially squabbled with Brown Rudnick and Verdolino for weeks over who should review potentially privileged documents before eventually agreeing that the Debtor's current counsel would do so but would need an indeterminate \"reasonable time\" for such review. The Trustee did not then categorically reject counsel's request to review the documents, as the Debtor asserts. (*See* Objection ¶ 19.) Rather, the Trustee rejected the Debtor's request to not even begin reviewing the documents until a week after production was due with no guarantee as to when they would be produced. In an effort to be constructive, the Trustee proposed a practical solution that would allow all of Brown Rudnick's and Verdolino's documents to be produced immediately. Specifically, even though the Debtor had waived his ability to withhold documents as privileged under the Privilege Order by not producing a log by the deadline, the Trustee offered to treat every document produced by Brown Rudnick and Verdolino as an inadvertently produced document, such that the Debtor could exercise his rights under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26 and Federal Rule of Evidence 502(b) to claw back any document produced to the Trustee that he believes may cause him personal harm. <sup>3</sup> But the Debtor rejected this solution, with the only logical explanation being that he would prefer to continue to delay and obstruct this investigation.\n\n4. The Debtor now touts the progress he has purportedly made in reviewing Brown Rudnick's and Verdolino's files, as if to show that his counsel's proposal to review all of the documents prior to their production is working as intended. Specifically, he states that his counsel received more than 16,000 such files on October 6, 2022 and that counsel has since reviewed those files, identifying 33 of them as documents to be included in a privilege log. But the Debtor's efforts are both far too little and far too late. The Court established a hard deadline of September 26, 2022 for his counsel to produce a privilege log, and the Debtor let that deadline lapse with no action. He does not get a second chance. 4 *Buck v. United States*, No. 3:18-CV-1253 (AWT), 2021 WL 4391090, at \\*1 (D. Conn. Sept. 24, 2021) (withholding party \"must 'serve on all parties a privilege log' with information required under local rules, D. Conn. Civ. R. 26(e), or risk waiving\n\n<sup>3</sup> The Debtor has asserted that the Trustee's offer to allow the Debtor to assert his clawback rights under the Federal Rules is not a \"compromise\" because he already has such rights. The Debtor misunderstands. He only has clawback rights with respect to documents produced inadvertently. If the Debtor allows documents to be produced without reviewing them, then any production of privileged documents would not be inadvertent. The Trustee, however, has offered to treat them as inadvertently produced as a compromise. Moreover, the Debtor ignores that, by letting the deadline to produce a privilege log lapse, he waived his ability to assert privilege under the Privilege Order. The Trustee, however, is still willing to give the Debtor a clawback right.\n\n<sup>4</sup> In paragraph 14 of his Objection, the Debtor asserts that it would have been \"absurd\" for anyone to conclude that privilege determinations could have been made in response to the Subpoena by the September 16 response deadline because the Privilege Order did not enter until September 14. The Debtor misses the point. The deadline to produce a privilege log was not until September 26, twelve days later. In any event, as of September 14, the Debtor had full knowledge of his obligations under the Privilege Order. If he needed more time to meet those obligations, he could have moved for an extension. He did not.\n\nthe privilege entirely\"); *see also Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. v. Turner & Newall, PLC*, 964 F.2d 159, 166 (2d Cir. 1992) (\"[F]ailure to comply with the explicit requirements of [the local rule] may result in a finding that the privilege has been waived[.]\").\n\n5. In any event, the Debtor's purported progress is hardly meaningful. Despite saying he is withholding 33 documents as privileged, *the Debtor still has not produced a privilege log for those documents, nor has he produced any of the non-privileged documents*. The Trustee looks forward to seeing a log and learning, finally, what types of documents in the files of Brown Rudnick and Verdolino the Debtor believes could possibly cause him personal harm if disclosed to the Trustee. Another glaring problem with the progress the Debtor touts is that he has only received and reviewed one batch of documents. The Trustee understands that Brown Rudnick and Verdolino still have thousands more documents to send to the Debtor's counsel for review, and the Debtor's counsel has not committed to review and log those documents by a date certain.\n\n6. The bottom line is that the Debtor is out of time and has been for weeks. This Court should enforce the Privilege Order and direct that Brown Rudnick's and Verdolino's documents be produced immediately, subject to the Debtor's ability to exercise his clawback rights under the Federal Rules of Evidence and Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.\n\n[*Remainder of Page Intentionally Left Blank*]\n\nWHEREFORE, the Trustee respectfully requests that the Court grant the Enforcement Motion and (a) enter the Proposed Order in substantially the form attached thereto and (b) grant such other and further relief as may be just and proper.\n\nDated: October 12, 2022 LUC A. DESPINS,\n\nNew Haven, Connecticut CHAPTER 11 TRUSTEE\n\nBy: */s/ Patrick R. Linsey*\n\nPatrick R. Linsey (ct29437) NEUBERT, PEPE & MONTEITH, P.C. 195 Church Street, 13th Floor New Haven, Connecticut 06510 (203) 781-2847 plinsey@npmlaw.com\n\n*and*\n\nNicholas A. Bassett (admitted *pro hac vice*) PAUL HASTINGS LLP 2050 M Street NW Washington, D.C., 20036 (202) 551-1902 nicholasbassett@paulhastings.com\n\n*and*\n\nAvram E. Luft (admitted *pro hac vice*) Douglass Barron (admitted *pro hac vice*) PAUL HASTINGS LLP 200 Park Avenue New York, New York 10166 (212) 318-6079 aviluft@paulhastings.com douglassbarron@paulhastings.com\n\n*Counsel for the Chapter 11 Trustee*","body_zh":"UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT BRIDGEPORT DIVISION（美国康涅狄格区破产法院布里奇波特分院）\n\n----------------------------------------------------------- x\n\n案由： :\n:\n第 11 章\nHO WAN KWOK（郭文贵）， :\n:\n案号：22-50073 (JAM)\n\n债务人。1 :\n\n----------------------------------------------------------- x\n第 11 章破产受托人关于请求作出准予遵守破产程序规则第 2004 条传票并执行关于控制与第 2004 条传票所涉文件和信息相关的律师-委托人保密特权及工作成果保护的同意裁定的动议之支持性回复\n\nLuc A. Despins（卢克·A·德斯宾斯）作为债务人破产财产被指定的第 11 章受托人（下称「受托人」），由其署名律师代表，谨此提交本回复（下称「本回复」），用以：(i) 进一步支持其动议 [ECF No. 898]（下称「执行动议」）；以及 (ii) 回应债务人对执行动议提出的异议 [ECF No. 939]（下称「异议」）。为支持本回复，受托人谨陈述如下：\n论证\n\n1. 法院于 2022 年 9 月 14 日作出了特权裁定2。该裁定第 7 段规定，若债务人希望以披露文件会对其个人造成损害为由拒绝提供文件，「债务人的律师」（Zeisler & Zeisler（蔡斯勒律师事务所））必须在响应适用传票的截止日期后 10 天内提供特权清单。\n\n1 尽管债务人的法定姓名为 Ho Wan Kwok（郭文贵），但其亦被称为 Guo Wengui（郭文贵）、Miles Guo（文贵·郭）以及 Miles Kwok（文贵·郭），并使用诸多其他别名。债务人纳税人识别号的后四位数字为 9595。\n\n2 [ECF No. 856]。本回复中未另行定义的首字母大写术语具有执行动议中赋予该等术语的含义。\n\nBrown Rudnick（布朗鲁德尼克律师事务所）和 Verdolino（凡多利诺公司）响应其传票的截止日期为 2022 年 9 月 16 日，因此特权清单截止日期定于 2022 年 9 月 26 日。然而，债务人的律师未在该截止日期前提供特权清单，律师亦未提出延期动议。由于特权清单截止日期已过而债务人未采取任何行动，法院能够且应当执行特权裁定，并指示立即提供 Brown Rudnick 和 Verdolino 的文件。分析至此结束。\n\n2. 债务人在其异议中请求给予更多时间，且显然是请求法院干脆对其先前的自身裁定置之不理。但执行法院先前的裁定（包括特权裁定），是在本案中维持秩序并防止债务人明目张胆地藐视其对受托人和法院所负义务的唯一途径。债务人声称其从未试图拖延受托人的调查，但案卷记录显然截然相反。本案目前已审理了八个月。受托人于三个多月前被指定，而本法院于近两个月前的 2022 年 8 月 16 日作出了第 2004 条裁定。受托人于 2022 年 8 月 17 日向 Brown Rudnick 和 Verdolino 送达了传票。自那时起，要让债务人采取任何行动，往轻了说，都是一个极其痛苦的过程。\n\n3. 债务人最初与 Brown Rudnick 及 Verdolino 就谁应审查可能享有特权的文件争吵了数周，最终才同意由债务人的现任律师进行审查，但该审查需要不确定的「合理时间」。正如债务人所主张的那样，受托人当时并未断然拒绝律师审查文件的请求。（见异议第 19 段。）相反，受托人拒绝的是债务人提出的直到提供文件的截止日期过了一周之后才开始审查文件、且对何时提供文件不作任何保证的请求。为了体现建设性，受托人提出了一项切实可行的解决方案，使 Brown Rudnick 和 Verdolino 的所有文件均可立即提供。具体而言，尽管债务人因未在截止日期前提供清单而放弃了根据特权裁定以特权为由拒绝提供文件的权利，受托人仍提出将 Brown Rudnick 和 Verdolino 提供的每一份文件均视为非故意提供的文件，从而使债务人可以行使其在《联邦民事诉讼规则》第 26 条和《联邦证据规则》第 502(b) 条下的权利，追回向受托人提供的任何其认为可能对其个人造成损害的文件。3 但债务人拒绝了这一解决方案，唯一合乎逻辑的解释就是他宁愿继续拖延并阻碍本项调查。\n\n4. 债务人现在吹嘘其在审查 Brown Rudnick 和 Verdolino 的案卷方面据称取得的进展，就好像是为了表明其律师在提供所有文件之前先行审查的提议正在按预期发挥作用一样。具体而言，他声称其律师于 2022 年 10 月 6 日收到了 16,000 多份此类案卷，且律师此后已审查了这些案卷，确定其中 33 份文件应列入特权清单。但债务人的努力既太少，又太迟。法院为其律师设定了提供特权清单的硬性截止日期即 2022 年 9 月 26 日，而债务人未采取任何行动任由该截止日期失效。他不会获得第二次机会。4 Buck v. United States（巴克诉美国案），No. 3:18-CV-1253 (AWT), 2021 WL 4391090，第 *1 页（D. Conn.（康涅狄格区法院）2021 年 9 月 24 日）（拒绝提供文件的一方「必须『向所有各方送达特权清单』，其中包含依据地方法规 D. Conn. Civ. R. 26(e) 所要求的信息，否则将承担完全放弃\n\n3 债务人声称，受托人允许债务人根据《联邦规则》主张其追回权的提议并非「妥协」，因为他本就拥有此类权利。债务人对此存在误解。他仅对非故意提供（疏忽提供）的文件享有追回权。如果债务人允许在未经审查的情况下提供文件，则提供任何享有特权的文件便不再属于非故意。然而，受托人作为妥协方案，提出将这些文件视为非故意提供。此外，债务人忽视了由于任由提供特权清单的截止日期失效，他已放弃了根据特权裁定主张特权的权利。然而，受托人仍愿意给予债务人追回权。\n\n4 债务人在其异议第 14 段中声称，任何人如果认定在 9 月 16 日的响应截止日期前能够就响应传票作出特权判定，都将是「荒谬的」，因为特权裁定直到 9 月 14 日才作出。债务人未能抓住要点。提供特权清单的截止日期是在十二天之后的 9 月 26 日。无论如何，截至 9 月 14 日，债务人已完全知晓其在特权裁定项下的义务。如果他需要更多时间来履行这些义务，他本可以提出延期动议。但他并没有提出。\n\n特权的风险」）；另见 Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. v. Turner & Newall, PLC（大通曼哈顿银行诉特纳纽瓦尔股份有限公司案），964 F.2d 159, 166（2d Cir.（第二巡回法院）1992 年）（「未能遵守[地方法规的]明确要求，可能导致作出特权已被放弃的认定[。]」）。\n\n5. 无论如何，债务人据称取得的进展几乎没有任何意义。尽管债务人声称其以享有特权为由扣留了 33 份文件，但债务人仍未就这些文件提供特权清单，亦未提供任何非特权文件。受托人期待看到清单，并最终知晓债务人认为 Brown Rudnick 和 Verdolino 案卷中的哪些类型的文件在披露给受托人后可能会对其个人造成损害。债务人吹嘘的进展所存在的另一个明显问题是，他仅接收并审查了一批文件。受托人获悉，Brown Rudnick 和 Verdolino 仍有数千份额外文件需发送给债务人的律师进行审查，而债务人的律师尚未承诺在确定日期之前对这些文件进行审查并编制清单。\n\n6. 归根结底，债务人的期限已过，而且已经过了数周。本法院应当执行特权裁定，并指示立即提供 Brown Rudnick 和 Verdolino 的文件，但债务人有权行使其在《联邦证据规则》和《联邦民事诉讼规则》项下的追回权。\n\n[本页下半部分有意留白]\n\n据此，受托人谨请求法院准予执行动议，并且 (a) 基本上按照其所附形式作出拟议裁定，以及 (b) 给予可能属于公正且适当的其他及进一步救济。\n\n日期：2022 年 10 月 12 日 LUC A. DESPINS（卢克·A·德斯宾斯），\n\n康涅狄格州纽黑文 第 11 章受托人\n\n签署人：/s/ Patrick R. Linsey\n\nPatrick R. Linsey (ct29437) NEUBERT, PEPE & MONTEITH, P.C.（纽伯特、佩佩与蒙泰斯律师事务所）195 Church Street, 13th Floor New Haven, Connecticut 06510 (203) 781-2847 plinsey@npmlaw.com\n\n及\n\nNicholas A. Bassett（获准特别出庭）PAUL HASTINGS LLP（普衡律师事务所）2050 M Street NW Washington, D.C., 20036 (202) 551-1902 nicholasbassett@paulhastings.com\n\n及\n\nAvram E. Luft（获准特别出庭）Douglass Barron（获准特别出庭）PAUL HASTINGS LLP 200 Park Avenue New York, New York 10166 (212) 318-6079 aviluft@paulhastings.com douglassbarron@paulhastings.com\n\n第 11 章受托人代理律师","key_entities":["Je","Kwok","Guo","Ho Wan Kwok","Despins","Paul Hastings","Miles Guo"],"ecf_references":[{"doc_number":856,"court":"CTB"},{"doc_number":898,"court":"CTB"},{"doc_number":939,"court":"CTB"}],"word_count":1505,"status":"published","published_at":null,"created_at":null,"updated_at":"2026-08-23 12:54:36"}