郭文贵破产案 · ORDER · ECF #2301

元数据

当事人: 郭文贵 (Guo Wengui / Miles Guo / Ho Wan Kwok)
法院: CTB
案号: 22-50073
ECF #: 2301
类型: ORDER
立案日: 2023-11-02

原始法庭文件为英文，下方为英文全文。

全文

UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT BRIDGEPORT DIVISION In Re \* Case No. 22-50073 (JAM) \* HO WAN KWOK and GENEVER \* HOLDINGS CORPORATION, \* \* Debtors. \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* LUC A. DESPINS, CHAPTER 11, \* Adv. Proc. No. 23-05005 TRUSTEE, \* Plaintiff, \* \* v. \* \* GREENWICH LAND, LLC, et al., \* \* Defendants. \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* LUC A. DESPINS, CHAPTER 11 \* Adv. Proc. No. 23-05008 TRUSTEE, \* \* Plaintiff, \* v. \* \* GUO, \* \* Defendant. \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* LUC A. DESPINS, et al., \* Adv. Proc. No. 23-05013 \* Plaintiffs, \* \* v. \* \* HCHK TECHNOLOGIES, INC., \* et al., \* \* Defendants. \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* LUC A. DESPINS, et al., \* Adv. Proc. No. 23-05017 \* Plaintiffs, \* \* v. \* \* TAURUS FUND LLC, et al., \* \* Defendants. \* **Fiore Reporting and Transcription Service, Inc. 4 Research Drive, Suite 402 Shelton, Connecticut 06484 (203)929-9992**

## Case 22-50073 Doc 2301 Filed 11/02/23 Entered 11/02/23 09:23:46 Page 2 of 72

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE HONORABLE JULIE A. MANNING UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY JUDGE

Proceedings recorded by electronic sound recording, transcript produced by transcription service.

- #2270 ORDER SCHEDULING HEARING REGARDING G CLUB DOCUMENTS - #2279 ORDER GRANTING CHAPTER 11 TRUSTEE'S EMERGENCY MOTION FOR STATUS CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS PRESERVATION OF PROPERTY OF ESTATE AND ORDERING CERTAIN COUNSEL TO APPEAR AT STATUS CONFERENCE - # 90 ORDER GRANTING CHAPTER 11 TRUSTEE'S EMERGENCY MOTION FOR STATUS CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS PRESERVATION OF PROPERTY OF ESTATE AND ORDERING CERTAIN COUNSEL TO APPEAR AT STATUS CONFERENCE - # 32 MOTION TO COMPEL - # 157 ORDER SCHEDULING HEARING REGARDING G-CLUB DOCUMENTS - # 71 ORDER GRANTING CHAPTER 11 TRUSTEE'S EMERGENCY MOTION FOR STATUS CONFERENCE TO DISCUSS PRESERVATION OF PROPERTY OF ESTATE AND ORDERING CERTAIN COUNSEL TO APPEAR AT STATUS CONFERENCE

APPEARANCES: Chapter 11 Trustee: LUC A. DESPINS, ESQ. Paul Hastings LLP 200 Park Avenue New York, NY 10166 For the Chapter 11 Trustee: AVRAM EMMANUEL LUFT, ESQ. Paul Hastings LLP 200 Park Avenue New York, NY 10166 DOUGLAS S. SKALKA, ESQ. Neubert Pepe and Monteith 195 Church Street,13th Floor New Haven, CT 06510 For the Creditors Committee: JONATHAN KAPLAN, ESQ. Pullman & Comley 850 Main Street Bridgeport, CT 06601 For the Creditor, Pacific STUART M. SARNOFF, ESQ. Alliance Asia Opportunity O'Melveny & Myers LLP Fund L.P.: Times Square Tower 7 Times Square New York, NY 10036 ANNECCA H. SMITH, ESQ. Robinson & Cole LLP 280 Trumbull Street Hartford, CT 06103 For Taurus Fund, LLC: MICHAEL T. CONWAY, ESQ. Lazare Potter Giacovas & Moyle, LLP 747 Third Avenue New York, NY 10017 For Hing Chi Ngok and CHRISTOPHER J. MAJOR, ESQ. Greenwich Land, LLC: Meister Seelig & Fein LLP 125 Park Avenue New York, NY 10017

APPEARANCES: (Cont'd) For the Plaintiff, MELISSA F. WERNICK, ESQ. HK International Funds and Chiesa Shahinian & Mei Guo: Giantomasi, PC 105 Eisenhauer Pkwy Roseland, NJ 07068 JAMES M. MORIARTY, ESQ. ERIC A. HENZY, ESQ. Zeisler & Zeisler, P.C. 10 Middle Street, 15th FL Bridgeport, CT 06604 For HCHK Creditors: PAUL FENAROLI, ESQ. Pastore, LLC 4 High Ridge Park, Third Floor Stamford, CT 06905 For G Clubs Operations, LLC: JEFFREY M. SKLARZ, ESQ. Green & Sklarz, LLC One Audubon Street New Haven, CT 06511 CAROLINA FORNOS, ESQ. Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman 31 West 52nd Street New York, NY 10019

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 5 (Proceedings commenced at 1:44 p.m.) THE COURTROOM DEPUTY: 22-50073, Ho Wan Kwok and Genever Holdings, LLC; 23-05005, Luc A. Despins, Chapter 11 Trustee, vs. Greenwich Land, LLC, et al.; 23-05008, Luc A. Despins, Chapter 11 Trustee vs. Guo; 23-50 -- excuse me, 5013, Despins, et al. vs. HCHK Technologies, Inc., et al.; 23-05017, Despins, et al. vs. Taurus Fund, LLC, et al. THE COURT: Okay. Good afternoon. If we could have appearances for the record, please, starting with the Chapter 11 Trustee. MR. DESPINS: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Luc Despins, Chapter 11 Trustee. I'm here with my counsel, Avi Luft, from Paul Hastings. THE COURT: Good afternoon. MR. SKALKA: Good afternoon, Your Honor. I'm sorry. Good afternoon, Your Honor. Douglas Skalka also here on behalf of the Chapter 11 Trustee as his local counsel. THE COURT: Good afternoon. MR. FENAROLI: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Paul Fenaroli on behalf of Pastore, LLC. I'm just here to observe this afternoon. MR. SKLARZ: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Jeffrey Sklarz, Green & Sklarz, for G Club together with lead counsel, Carolina Fornos of Pillsbury Winthrop.

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 6 MS. FORNOS: Good afternoon, Your Honor. THE COURT: Good afternoon. MR. SARNOFF: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Stuart Sarnoff, O'Melveny & Myers, on behalf of Creditor PAX. MR. MAJOR: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Chris Major, Meister Seelig & Fein. We represent Greenwich Land, LLC and Ms. Hing Chi Ngok. MS. SMITH: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Annecca Smith, Robinson+Cole, also on behalf of PAX along with Mr. Sarnoff. MS. WERNICK: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Melissa Wernick from Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi on behalf of Ms. Guo in the 5008 adversary proceeding. MR. MORIARTY: Good afternoon, Your Honor. James Moriarty from Zeisler & Zeisler, local counsel for Ms. Guo in that same adversary proceeding, 23-05008. MR. HENZY: Your Honor, Eric Henzy of Zeisler & Zeisler for the debtor. MR. KAPLAN: Good afternoon. Jonathan Kaplan on behalf of the creditors' committee. THE COURT: Mr. Conway, for some reason, we can't hear you, although I can see that you're speaking. I'm not sure why we can't hear Mr. Conway. He doesn't appear to be muted. Mr. Conway, can you hear us? You can nod your

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 7 head if you can. See, I don't even think he can hear us. (Counsel confer) THE COURT: All right. Mr. Conway appears to be connecting to audio, but he hasn't connected yet. Attorney Claiborn from the Office of the United States Trustee is in the courtroom. Do you wish to note your appearance? MS. CLAIBORN: No, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. Oh, you can see her, though. There she is. Okay. And a member of the public is here, too, to observe the hearing. So there are several matters on the calendar today. I see that something was filed, I believe, late last night with regard to Adversary 23-5008 regarding a joint motion to modify the pretrial order in that adversary. Is that correct, Trustee Despins? MR. DESPINS: Mr. Skalka is handling that, Your Honor. I think -- THE COURT: Okay. MR. DESPINS: I think that's correct. But I'll let him address it. MR. SKALKA: Your Honor, that is correct. The purpose of the motion was to advise the Court that it

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 8 | |----|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | appears the -- an agreement has been reached between the | | 2 | trustee and counsel for Ms. Guo, at which -- under which she | | 3 | would agree to appear at a deposition next Wednesday, | | 4 | November 1st. And the parties are requesting that the | | 5 | existing pretrial order be modified to allow for this | | 6 | discovery to take place. | | 7 | So we've asked for the discovery deadline to be | | 8 | moved to December -- excuse me, November 10th and that the | | 9 | deadline for filing dispositive motions be moved to November | | 10 | 28th. And I think if that's acceptable to Your Honor, then | | 11 | today's motions to compel can be denied as moot. | | 12 | THE COURT: Okay. Attorney Wernick, are you -- | | 13 | you had indicated you where here on that matter as well. | | 14 | MS. WERNICK: Correct. And the motion filed | | 15 | accurately reflects the parties' agreement. | | 16 | THE COURT: Okay. I note -- I just note for the | | 17 | record that, Attorney Wernick, your office is the only | | 18 | office that signed this joint motion on behalf of Ms. Guo, | | 19 | but there are -- the Zeisler firm still has appearances on | | 20 | behalf of Ms. Guo in this adversary, correct? | | 21 | MS. WERNICK: Correct. | | 22 | THE COURT: Okay. All right. I've looked at | | 23 | your -- the motion, the joint motion. I have to say, I | | 24 | looked at it very briefly since it was filed last night. | | 25 | But it does appear to be fine. It seems to me all you're | | | |

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 9 | |----|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | asking to do is extend the deadlines to complete fact | | 2 | discovery by 23 days and for the filing of motions for | | 3 | summary judgment by 11 days. And you've put the dates in | | 4 | the ordered paragraphs and that the -- if this order | | 5 | granting the joint motion to modify the pretrial order is | | 6 | entered, excuse me, then the motion to compel will be denied | | 7 | as moot. | | 8 | Does anyone else wish to be heard on this issue? | | 9 | So are you conducting the deposition of the | | 10 | defendant or not, Attorney Skalka? I'm just -- you are but | | 11 | sometime in that -- | | 12 | MR. SKALKA: Yes. | | 13 | THE COURT: -- in that period, that extended | | 14 | period of time? | | 15 | MR. SKALKA: Yes, Your Honor. The parties have | | 16 | agreed that she will appear on November 1st in my offices in | | 17 | New Haven. | | 18 | THE COURT: Okay. All right. Then I will -- what | | 19 | was submitted as ECF Number 37 in this Adversary 23-05008, I | | 20 | will enter that order granting the joint motion to modify | | 21 | the pretrial order, which will then render the motion to | | 22 | compel as moot -- denied as moot. Okay? | | 23 | So is that the only issue that we need to address | | 24 | in that adversary proceeding? | | 25 | MR. SKALKA: I believe so, Your Honor. | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 10 MS. WERNICK: Yes, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. All right. Thank you, both, then. I thought we should address that first since it does resolve these issues. So the motion to compel is denied as moot due to the modification of the pretrial order. MR. SKALKA: Thank you, Your Honor. THE COURT: Thank you, both. MS. WERNICK: Thank you, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. Thank you. Trustee Despins, what matter would you like to turn to next? MR. DESPINS: I believe the G Club matter is the next one on the agenda in terms of order of appearance. THE COURT: Then go right ahead. Whoever is going to proceed with that matter, please proceed. MR. DESPINS: Mr. Luft is going to represent me on that matter, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. Go right ahead. MR. LUFT: Good afternoon, Your Honor. THE COURT: Good afternoon. MR. LUFT: Avi Luft with Paul Hastings on behalf of the Chapter 11 Trustee. Your Honor, we're here following up with regard to the 9019 settlement and the term of it which provided for the trustee to have access to HCHK's documents. This term was important. It was provided in

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 11 part to address -- deal with cost and also because of the need for that information.

Those documents, what HCHK has in its files, go directly to the issues that play into the adversary proceeding, which is an alter ego claim against HCHK. And, clearly, documents that show connections between the debtor, his finances, and entities related to him are exactly the type of evidence that would go towards a finding of alter ego. And G Club clearly falls within that category, being an entity that this Court has already found to be controlled by the debtor.

Now, as I said, the assignee estate and the debtor's estate agreed to this term in part because it would save substantial resources and costs that would otherwise burden both estates if there was adversarial discovery. But there's no question, Your Honor, had we not reached that agreement, we would have pursued discovery on these very same topics, including, and in particular, related to G Club, who has routinely appeared at the heart of issues related to the debtor.

Previously, we had served HCHK with a 2004 subpoena. Prior counsel for HCHK, before it was taken over by the assignee, clearly did not give accurate information or comply, because it only produced 148 documents total for HCHK as having any connection with regards to the debtor.

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 12 | |----|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | Now we are learning that there are literally | | 2 | hundreds of thousands of such responsive documents. Those | | 3 | would have been pursued. | | 4 | Similarly, had we not reached agreement, we | | 5 | certainly would have used Rule 26 in this adversary | | 6 | proceeding to seek documents showing the connection between | | 7 | HCHK and the debtor as part of the alter ego. | | 8 | Now, in response, G Club came to this Court and | | 9 | said initially that the issue was that it did not have | | 10 | access to its emails because they were -- they were at HCHK, | | 11 | and it wanted access to them so that it could comply with | | 12 | its separate Rule 2004 subpoena. And then somewhere along | | 13 | the line that got shifted. And then it became about | | 14 | G Club's ownership of the documents. And what they said was | | 15 | that those documents which were in HCHK's possession and | | 16 | systems, A, included privileged material and, B, should not | | 17 | be handed over to the trustee, because they were | | 18 | non-responsive to the subpoena to G Club in the 2004, not, | | 19 | notably, that they were not responsive to discovery related | | 20 | to HCHK. | | 21 | Now, and the foundation of that argument, Your | | 22 | Honor, has always been what I believe is a straw mat: that | | 23 | HCHK's only relation to the G Club documents was as an | | 24 | administrator of the cloud-based computing system. And, |

Fiore Reporting and Transcription Service, Inc.

Your Honor, if you look at G Club's brief on this, which is

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 13 | |----|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | at Docket 2244 -- or Document 2244 in, I believe, the main | | 2 | case, you see at page 6 they say, "HCHK was simply the | | 3 | administrator of a cloud-based enterprise (indiscernible)." | | 4 | A little further down: G Club did not "share its | | 5 | purportedly privileged information with HCHK. It simply | | 6 | contracted for the operation of a document management system | | 7 | with a third party." | | 8 | Then on page 7 they say, "The trustee performed | | 9 | some sleight of hand, characterizing G Club as giving HCHK | | 10 | access to its documents." | | 11 | And then on page 8 it says, "HCHK merely hosted | | 12 | G Club data." | | 13 | So, Your Honor, where I'd like to start with this | | 14 | is to actually look at the master services agreement, which | | 15 | in this adversary is at Document 88, in which G Club | | 16 | predicates its claims on its -- or the basis upon which it | | 17 | can claim these documents but studiously never cites to. | | 18 | And I think it's quite clear from this document that HCHK | | 19 | was not merely hosting G Club data. | | 20 | THE COURT: Just hold on a second. You're in the | | 21 | master services agreement that's somewhere on the docket -- | | 22 | MR. LUFT: Yep. | | 23 | THE COURT: -- of the adversary proceeding? Is | | 24 | that what you said? | | 25 | MR. LUFT: Yes, Your Honor. It's Document 88, I | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 14 believe. THE COURT: All right. Give me a moment, please. MR. LUFT: Of course, Your Honor. THE COURT: In Adversary 5013, right? MR. LUFT: Yes, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. Hold on. I don't think it's 88. If it's 88, I'm not seeing anything. MR. LUFT: I will double check that, Your Honor. I was told that that's where the unredacted copy was. I know it was Exhibit A to the brief we filed at Exhibit -- at Document Number 86. THE COURT: Okay. Let me get back to that. (Court confers) THE COURT: All right. Give me one minute. Then I can get there. You just have to be patient, if you would, please, for a moment. MR. LUFT: Of course. (Pause) THE COURT: All right. So you want me to go to page 20 of that document. Is that what you're saying, Attorney Luft? MR. LUFT: No, Your Honor. Just to the first page of the master service agreement. THE COURT: Okay. Hold on. Then I got -- MR. LUFT: That's where I'll start.

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 15 THE COURT: I have to find it. I think it's on page 20 -- MR. LUFT: Of course. THE COURT: -- is the first page. All right. I'm there on the first page of the master services agreement. MR. LUFT: Thank you, Your Honor. And, unfortunately, I have to note that, once again, this document was stamped by G Club as highly confidential, so we need to take precautions. I know you mentioned that there was -- I believe everyone on the phone is a assignee of the protected order, but you did mention there was a member of the public there. THE COURT: Well, what are you -- are you going to be talking about specific things? Or why don't you just refer me to whatever it is, and I can read it, so we don't have to make it part of the record. MR. LUFT: Sure, Your Honor. Let's try to do it that way. So if we look in the first whereas clause -- THE COURT: Uh-huh. MR. LUFT: -- with regard to what they were contracting to do, Your Honor, I think it's clear what the agreement was for. I would next direct the Court down to Section 1.1, which expresses what the scope of services is and directs the reader to Exhibit A, which sets out those services.

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 16 And if one turns to Exhibit A of the document, which is immediately after the signature page -- THE COURT: Give me a second, if you would, please, to get there. MR. LUFT: Of course, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. I am at the -- I'm at the exhibit you just mentioned. MR. LUFT: And if Your Honor looks at A through F, you can see the long litany of services that are to be provided by HCHK to G Club. THE COURT: Okay. MR. LUFT: Then, Your Honor, if we can go back to that first page of the master services agreement under client duties and responsibilities. Broadly speaking, Your Honor can read the provisions herself, but one can see about the types of information and documentation that was to be provided by G Club to HCHK to perform its services. I'll note the word "all" there. THE COURT: Okay. I see that. MR. LUFT: Okay. Your Honor, if we turn on to the confidential information section under 6.2. Again, Your Honor will be able to read it for herself. But broadly speaking, what you'll see is what we all know to be an extremely common provision dealing with parties' agreements about making information available when there is a subpoena

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 17 or legal service. THE COURT: Okay. I see that. MR. LUFT: And finally, Your Honor, I direct you to Section 7.3 under client materials, which again talks about the provision of information, data, work, and whatnot to HCHK in connection with its provision of services, with the definition of the word "technology" as pertinent being defined in 7.1D. THE COURT: Okay. Thank you. I see that. MR. LUFT: And, Your Honor, at this point, I think I can take us off the NSA, and I'll try to keep it broad in -- when I reference it. So I think it's clear that HCHK was doing far more for G Club than merely hosting its data. And that, of course, is backed up by HCHK's own filings in which it explained the services it performed for G Club. If Your Honor is interested, I could provide you with that ECF information as well in connection with an order to show cause in connection with the assignment itself where the assignee explained what HCHK did and specifically listed G Club as one of the companies it did it for. THE COURT: Yes, if you could cite -- MR. LUFT: And that's a public document. THE COURT: If you could cite to what you're speaking to -- about, that would be helpful. MR. LUFT: So this is in the Adversary Proceeding

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 18 | |----|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | 23-05013. Is that -- I'm going to ask my colleague. | | 2 | (Counsel confer) | | 3 | MR. LUFT: 113. 1-13 in that adversary. And it's | | 4 | Mr. Hoffmeister's affidavit. | | 5 | So, Your Honor, as I was saying, clearly they did | | 6 | far more for G Club than merely host its data. To perform | | 7 | those services, HCHK needed broad access to swaths of G Club | | 8 | documents and information. G Club gave them that access. | | 9 | I'll keep that broad. But Your Honor has seen the | | 10 | provisions. | | 11 | And, notably in that document, nowhere is there | | 12 | any restriction on -- by G Club on HCHK's to access the | | 13 | privileged information or even making any distinction | | 14 | between its privilege and its non-privilege materials. | | 15 | So against that background, we get to our two | | 16 | questions. The first is this argument that G Club should be | | 17 | able to restrict the trustee's access to HCHK information | | 18 | because it's not responsive to a subpoena to G Club. Your | | 19 | Honor, that's the tail wagging the dog. | | 20 | The issue that -- in this adversary is HCHK's | | 21 | alter ego status. That's what the settlement was reached | | 22 | about. There was no discovery dispute with regard to | | 23 | G Club's 2004 subpoena in this adversary. Rather, it's | | 24 | inserted itself. | | 25 | The issue with this action goes to the alter ego | | | |

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 19 | |----|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | of HCHK which goes to -- links to the debtor, his finances, | | 2 | his loans, his personnel, which, as Your Honor just looked | | 3 | at the service agreement, you know the NSA and what was done | | 4 | for G Club by HCHK is directly pertinent to that. | | 5 | Now, Your Honor, G Club's documents have shown in | | 6 | what we looked at that G Club has deep connections to the | | 7 | debtor. Your Honor has already found they're connected. | | 8 | And moreover, we have found numerous loans that connect the | | 9 | debtor. We have found numerous documentations related to | | 10 | purchases for assets which are now in the debtor's | | 11 | possession. And all of these services handled by HCHK would | | 12 | presumably directly go to that topic. So they're all | | 13 | responsive. | | 14 | Quite simply, Your Honor, the mere fact that HCHK | | 15 | has all these G Club documents is quite compelling evidence | | 16 | as to the alter ego status of the debtor and HCHK. And | | 17 | G Club should not be able to stop proper discovery of HCHK | | 18 | based on whether or not that information would otherwise | | 19 | separately be responsive to a 2004 subpoena to G Club. | | 20 | Moreover, G Club can't now claim that it's unfair | | 21 | for the documents to be produced in this manner, because it | | 22 | gave them to G Club (sic). And, in fact, it expressly gave | | 23 | them with an understanding of what would happen if a | | 24 | subpoena or other legal process was served. And that's also | | 25 | in the MSA. | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 20 So demanding that its documents be removed from HCHK and returned to it and only produced if it's responsive to a 2004 to G Club, fundamentally, Your Honor, they would be altering the evidence in the case. What documents HCHK has in its possession, particularly ones that relate to debtor, are clearly pertinent to alter ego. That should be the question, not whether or not something is responsive to G Club subpoenas. That's not what we're here for. Now, Your Honor, I want -- at this point, I'd like to turn to privilege unless you have any questions with regard to responsiveness. THE COURT: I have no questions. Thank you. MR. LUFT: Okay. So let's talk about this assertion of privilege. G Club gave HCHK access to its files, its emails, and its documents. It specifically contracted for services that required HCHK to access and review that information. G Club did nothing to segregate or protect that privileged information. Now, the law is clear that to maintain privilege for an attorney/client communication, it must have been intended to be or was, in fact, kept confidential. That's set out in Strougo v. BEA Associates, 199 F.R.D. 515 at page 519. That's Southern District of New York 2001. And the party seeking the protection of the attorney/client privilege must affirmatively act to protect

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 21 their communications. That's the Niceforo case v. UBS, 20 F. Supp. 3d 428 at page 437, again Southern District of New York in 2014.

We know from the case law that voluntary disclosure of privileged information to service providers, if not for the purpose of helping comprehend legal advice, you waive that privilege. That's Acker (phonetic) and the AMPA case that we cite.

But the case I think is most pertinent to what we're talking about here, Your Honor, is Judge Friendly's decision in the Horowitz case. That's at 482 F.2d 72, page 82, 1973. In that decision, Judge Friendly found that a privilege is waived when documents are intermingled with non-privileged documents, and no special protections are made for privileged documents. There, and they point out, an accountant had free reign if they wanted to, to look through the -- whatever documents it wanted, and didn't do that.

Your Honor, that is what we have here. G Club, by its own admissions, gave all its documents over to HCHK. They told you they didn't know where the privileged documents were. They'd have to go through and review all the documents to pick out where they were. They were directly intermingled. And accounting services is one of the many services that HCHK had reason to go into the files

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 22 | |----|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | and look for. There was no segregation. HCHK had access | | 2 | and use. That is exactly what Horowitz speaks to. | | 3 | Now, you compound that, Your Honor, by the fact | | 4 | that this was done three times over. This happened with | | 5 | HCHK. Then HCHK transferred all its information to the | | 6 | assignee. Again, they had access to look at whatever files | | 7 | they needed to, both operating under the MSA. At no point | | 8 | did HCHK -- did G Club come to it and say that's our | | 9 | privileged information, you can't do that. Moreover, they | | 10 | had already waived it. | | 11 | And then, finally, Your Honor, it happened a third | | 12 | time when the assignee entered into a potential deal with an | | 13 | entity called G News, who is not allegedly affiliated with | | 14 | G Club. And as part of that agreement gave them access to | | 15 | all of HCHK's system. So three times over, there was a | | 16 | waiver. In each case, G Club did nothing to secure its | | 17 | documents and, more importantly, had always basically just | | 18 | handed over all of its files to HCHK and said go through, | | 19 | get what you need. | | 20 | Now, G Club's only response to this is, one, to | | 21 | take the claim and say all they did for us is cloud | | 22 | computing. That's what you're going to see when you go | | 23 | through their brief. There is not a mention of a single | | 24 | other service. But as Your Honor sees in the MSA and one |

can see in Mr. Hoffmeister's declaration, they did far, far

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 23 | |----|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | more for them. So any assertion that no one would have | | 2 | access to G Club's documents fails. | | 3 | The second thing they do is they cite to a single | | 4 | case, the Metro Services (sic) case. Now -- out of the | | 5 | chancery court in Delaware. Now, first, Your Honor, Metro | | 6 | Services doesn't address the issue of where a third party | | 7 | has access to the information. It merely speaks to | | 8 | third-party hosting and confidentiality. So whereas here, | | 9 | the entity who's hosting has reason to go in and actually | | 10 | access the information, that is not something that Metro | | 11 | Service speaks to. | | 12 | Moreover, I'll note Metro Service does not speak | | 13 | to the issue of privilege at all. It merely speaks to the | | 14 | notion of whether something can be held confidential. Nor | | 15 | does the underlying article that it cites as a basis for | | 16 | even that proposition. | | 17 | Now, the only other argument that they have, Your | | 18 | Honor, is to say that we have not proven that someone | | 19 | specifically asked us that information. Now, not only is | | 20 | that inconsistent with Mr. Hoffmeister's affidavit and the | | 21 | clear terms of the NSA and how it would work, but this is | | 22 | blatant burden shifting, Your Honor. The party asserting | | 23 | privilege has the obligation to prove it, so it is on G Club | | 24 | to prove that no one ever accessed its information, not on | | 25 | the trustee to go and try to show that someone actually did, |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 24 although, as I said, any reading of this agreement and what they -- the services they provided for them or Mr. Hoffmeister's affidavit clearly indicate that such access would have had to have happened. Your Honor, this is a dispute about HCHK and its adversary. That information about G Club's involvement with HCHK is clearly pertinent to that adversary. We should have access to it. And to the extent that any of that information was ever privileged, when they gave HCHK unfettered access to it, they waived such privilege, and we should get those documents as well. Your Honor, do you have any questions that I can answer on this point? THE COURT: I do not. Thank you. MR. LUFT: Thank you, Your Honor. THE COURT: Attorney Fornos, would you like to respond? MS. FORNOS: Yes, Your Honor, I would. But I think there's a number of misstatements that need to be corrected, so I'll take them one at a time. First, I want to frame the issue. The Court already ruled on this, and we submit that the Court had it right in July -- on July 28th when the Court issued a procedure that protected G Club's (indiscernible) rights and, at the same time, balanced any prejudice to the trustee. So the Court has already created

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 25 a mechanism by which G Club should have access to its documents. Now, one of the issues that I think is being -- perhaps creating confusion -- and understandably so, because these are complex technical issues. So I don't fault the trustee for not appreciating that this is not documents that are being commingled in an office or in a cabinet. This is a cloud service. This is wholesale Microsoft 365. That's where the documents and, in particular, the commingling of G Club is held. Now, Your Honor, I don't represent HCHK. I do not know how HCHK (indiscernible) documents. I don't -- I do not know as counsel for G Club what else HCHK (indiscernible). What I do know is that for a very limited period of time, G Club was not able to access its G Club domain. In other words, the user on the cloud using the G Club domain name were not able to access it. The trustee paints this picture of documents commingled, of things being shared, but I don't believe that the trustee has fully understood that this is just documents, domain names, a Gclub.com domain name on the cloud that maintains users. If we take the trustee's position, that means everyone on this call who has used Microsoft 365 and uses Case 22-50073 Doc 2301 Filed 11/02/23 Entered 11/02/23 09:23:46 Page 25 of 72

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 26 the cloud has arguably waived their rights. Microsoft has access to the cloud. It's truly an untenable position. HCHK acted as IT. So to be more precise, a new employee joins G Club; they need to get an email assigned to them. An employee leaves G Club; they need to have their account terminated, their email access. That's what we're talking about. Now, since the Court's order, I -- we worked with the assignee, and the assignee did exactly what the Court ordered. We were able to restore our access. And since the Court's order, we were able to get our domain name, review the documents, and we have produced to the trustee another 20,000 documents that are responsive. That's in addition, Your Honor, to the other 120,000 documents that were previously produced. So two things. They have had -- they've had in excess of 140,000 documents and bank records. And if they have any issues of what else it is that they feel that they need, they can certainly come and talk to us. But we have complied with the Court's order. We have worked with the assignee to produce documents. We have produced a privilege log and a redaction log. So at this point, Your Honor, we have complied. The Court's order of July 28th appropriately managed this. We are providing the information pursuant to the Rule 2004.

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 27 And there is absolutely no prejudice to the trustee to continue to follow the proper protocol. What the trustee is complaining -- and, again, we don't represent HCHK. If they have issues about HCHK's domain, that's Hchk.com or whatever their domain name is, or HCHK documents, that's an issue that they need to take up with HCHK. We as G Club have access to our documents. We have (indiscernible). We have produced responsive documents. And we've produced a privilege log. And, accordingly, we think that the -- this motion is a colossal waste of judicial resources. It should be denied at length, and the Court's original order of July 28th should be deemed (indiscernible). I'm happy to answer any questions the Court will have. THE COURT: I do not have any questions at the moment. Thank you. MR. LUFT: Your Honor, may I respond? THE COURT: Yes. MR. LUFT: All right. Well, let's start -- Ms. Fornos says that I somehow mischaracterized the Court's ruling. I would direct her to the -- Part B of the ruling which was the Court specifically said that the trustee shall file a brief in support of the trustee's argument that Case 22-50073 Doc 2301 Filed 11/02/23 Entered 11/02/23 09:23:46 Page 27 of 72

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 28 G Club has waived any privilege and has no right to object to responsiveness. So I'm sorry Ms. Fornos finds that to be a colossal waste of time, but there was no final ruling on this. The Court specifically set out that we were to brief it, and I think appropriately so. I do not find it a waste of time. And I do find it quite telling that -- what did we not here from Ms. Fornos? There was no mention of the NSA. There was no mention of all the services that had to be provided under the MSA. There was no mention that G Club had access to all these HCHK documents. Instead, she keeps talking about domain names. HCHK had all the documents, had to provide all the services for it. She says, well, we produced documents that were responsive to G Club's 2004. Well, that's good. They are required to do it. It took many months to get her to do that. But that has no bearing on whether HCHK's Rule 2004 is at issue. Now, as to this -- to the extent she is trying to suggest what's the big deal, Your Honor, you get it for one, you get it for the other, she's -- it's true that she produced recently 20,000 documents. I called HCHK to say how many documents did you send them originally that would have been responsive if we just had our access, and I was Case 22-50073 Doc 2301 Filed 11/02/23 Entered 11/02/23 09:23:46 Page 28 of 72

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 29 told by HCHK's counsel that they produced hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of documents. So the fact that we got 2,000 -- sorry, 20,000 of those documents means there -- we are getting a fraction of what are the responsive documents to discovery with regard to HCHK both with regard to the 2004 it was served that it never properly responded to or that we would have -- absolutely have sought if we had not reached this settlement.

Now, as to the final -- where she started and where I'd like to end is she said I am not understanding how the cloud works; it's not a filing cabinet. No, it's not a physical filing cabinet. But in the modern world, Your Honor, it is a virtual filing cabinet. That is what we are talking about. It is a place where you store all your documents.

And Judge Friendly, who while not deciding today, as is often the case foresaw what is to come and understands what is at issue. What Judge Friendly speaks to in the Horowitz decision is when someone just hands someone a giant filing cabinet or box of documents or virtual container of documents and makes no effort to distinguish which are the privileged ones and which are not the privileged ones, then they are not complying with their obligations to protect those documents and, thus, they've waived the privilege. That is what we are talking about here. So the

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 30 | |----|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | fact that it is -- nothing about the fact that it is now | | 2 | kept on the "cloud" makes it any different. If anything, | | 3 | when you consider that I'm sure Judge Friendly was not | | 4 | envisioning a filing cabinet that could hold a million | | 5 | documents, it makes it all the more telling how little | | 6 | effort was done. | | 7 | We have not heard any explanation that someone -- | | 8 | that they have evidence that no one complied with the MSA, | | 9 | that the work wasn't done or anything else. | | 10 | And, finally, I'll just have a note, Your Honor, | | 11 | with regard to this question of the apocalyptic all law | | 12 | firms will have waived everything. That is not a question | | 13 | before the Court today. No one is talking about a | | 14 | hermetically sealed world where it is just on the cloud, no | | 15 | one accessed the information, and the legal question is, is | | 16 | the mere fact that you contracted with a third party to | | 17 | provide cloud services, if they are not otherwise given | | 18 | access to them, does that create a privilege waiver. That's | | 19 | not something we need to decide today. | | 20 | What we're talking about is, when someone gives | | 21 | someone access to all their documents, they hold the | | 22 | documents and specifically contracts to them and says go | | 23 | look at that information to do the work you have to do, | | 24 | exactly what they are talking about Acker and -- I'll find | | 25 | the name, Your Honor -- the AMPA decision where they talk |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 31 about accountants going in and looking at information, being provided information. That's the question we have. If something is on the cloud and you say to someone, a third party, hey, go take what you need, go look at my information, does that constitute a waiver. And also, Your Honor, that is textbook, that is exactly when there is a waiver. When you give third parties access to your privileged information, you waive. When you don't work to protect your information, you waive. And the fact that it is on the cloud does not change that. MS. FORNOS: Your Honor? THE COURT: Hold on just a second. I just want to make sure Attorney Luft is completing his statements. MR. LUFT: Your Honor, if you have no questions, I am complete. THE COURT: Okay. Thank you. All right. Hold on a second, Attorney Fornos. Just hold on a second. All right. Go ahead, Attorney Fornos. MS. FORNOS: Thank you, Your Honor. Your Honor, the master services agreement is not what's at issue here. And Mr. Luft is making a lot of conclusory jumps, conclusory jumps from access to possession, possession to waiver. And that's a very slippery slope, and it is an untenable

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 32 | |----|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | position. The fact of the matter is, we have our documents. | | 2 | We reviewed them, and we have produced responsive documents. | | 3 | Now, Mr. Luft is saying hundreds of thousands of | | 4 | documents. Well, that's -- to be fair, we've produced | | 5 | 140-plus-thousand documents. As the Court will recognize, | | 6 | in (indiscernible) 2004, a party need not go through 30 | | 7 | employees' email -- emails when we can identify specific | | 8 | custodians that are most likely to have (indiscernible) the | | 9 | trustee we have identified the custodians that have the | | 10 | information. We have applied search terms, and we have | | 11 | reviewed those documents, and we have reviewed quite a | | 12 | number of documents at a great cost to our company. | | 13 | Responsive documents have been produced. | | 14 | And the trustee cannot possibly stand before Your | | 15 | Honor and say that we haven't complied with that Rule 2004. | | 16 | We have produced the banking records. We have produced the | | 17 | emails (indiscernible). We have produced the loan | | 18 | documents. They have the information. | | 19 | What he's talking about here is conflating the | | 20 | scope with responsiveness and privilege. And on the | | 21 | privilege end, Your Honor, there is absolutely no evidence | | 22 | whatsoever that anyone at HCHK reviewed these emails, | | 23 | reviewed privileged communication, had access to every | | 24 | single document and actually reviewed it such that there | | 25 | would be an intentional waiver. | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 33 We ask the Court to deny this motion simply because the Court has already created a mechanism that is working. And I have yet to hear -- I haven't had a request for a meet and confer for any documents that they feel are missing. I haven't heard a meet and confer for anything from them since we produced these documents. So to the extent that there is (indiscernible) that's a different matter. The issue here is, is there a waiver simply because we had cloud services and HCHK acted as an IT department to help with the technological issue? The answer is no. The Court's order appropriately sets forth the mechanism, and we simply ask that the Court adhere to that original order and deny the request by the trustee to just have a wholesale waiver of every and any email and every and any document that exists on the cloud that HCHK may have had access to simply by being an IT manager. THE COURT: I didn't hear the last thing you said. I'm sorry. Would you say that again? MS. FORNOS: Sure. Yes, Your Honor. G Club does not waive its rights simply because an IT manager may have had access. There is no evidence of that. And, in fact, it would have been inappropriate for them to access any of our records. They simply acted as an IT department to assist with technological -- technical issues associated with the

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 34 | |----|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | cloud and with creating domain names and email addresses. | | 2 | There's no evidence, and it's a bit conclusory for the | | 3 | trustee to simply said that they had -- they have the right | | 4 | to every piece of paper, every email, every document that | | 5 | has been -- exists in the cloud simply because we had an IT | | 6 | manager. | | 7 | THE COURT: Well, I do have one question for you | | 8 | now that you've -- | | 9 | MS. FORNOS: Yes, Your Honor. | | 10 | THE COURT: -- Attorney Fornos. So you started | | 11 | off your -- this -- your response to Attorney Luft's reply | | 12 | after you both made your initial arguments to say that the | | 13 | MSA, the master service agreement, is not at issue here. | | 14 | But then you just said that there's no waiver simply because | | 15 | an IT manager had access to G Club's documents. | | 16 | So isn't the MSA at issue then? Because what | | 17 | evidence do I have other than that document to determine, | | 18 | rightly or wrongly, what services were provided by HCHK to | | 19 | G Club? | | 20 | MS. FORNOS: The Court is correct, Your Honor. | | 21 | And my apologies. The trustee's presentation focused on far | | 22 | beyond what the master services agreement allegedly | | 23 | provided. The issue of confidentiality was maintained by | | 24 | the master services agreement. The master services | | 25 | agreement did specifically say that HCHK would provide IT | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 35 services and all information was to be maintained confidential. What I'm referring to and the reason that I just want to make sure that we all understand, whatever the MSA and confidentiality restrictions apply to HCHK, the fact of the matter is they were an IT manager for our domain name. There is absolutely no evidence in the record that HCHK logged on and searched all of these emails and reviewed these emails or had the authority to simply cart blanche review these emails. That's just not in evidence. And what the trustee is painting is this picture of HCHK -- and I still even know who at HCHK. There's no names mentioned. There's no individuals that are being identified that allegedly rummaged through all of these emails and domain names as if they were rummaging in a cabinet maintained, physically possessed in their offices. And that's the part that I'm concerned about. There's conflating of issues here. These are digital records maintained on the cloud that only belong to G Club. And no one had a right to access that other than G Club. And the master services agreement did specifically say our information is confidential, period. MR. LUFT: Your Honor, if I may? THE COURT: Just briefly. Yes, you may. MR. LUFT: Okay. Just to clear this up. Again,

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 36 | |----|--------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | Your Honor, I'll direct you -- I won't say it, but if one | | 2 | looks at Exhibit A, IT, by my estimation, is one of 20 | | 3 | services provided by HCHK to G Club. And the agreement | | 4 | explicitly called in two places for G -- HCHK to use the | | 5 | information of G Club to perform those 20 services. | | 6 | So I don't know where Ms. Fornos can continually | | 7 | just say all they were, were IT managers or that I'm wildly | | 8 | speculating that people would be accessing the information. | | 9 | I'll point again to the affidavit again of Mr. Hoffmeister | | 10 | who also explicitly states those are the services they | | 11 | performed for G Club. | | 12 | Your Honor, that's all I have. | | 13 | MS. FORNOS: Your Honor? | | 14 | THE COURT: Yes? | | 15 | MS. FORNOS: May I just clarify? Providing a | | 16 | service doesn't mean and it's not the same as simply saying | | 17 | I'm going to log into your domain and look at your emails | | 18 | and email addresses and the contents of those email | | 19 | addresses. I'm baffled by the trustee's position, because | | 20 | to provide accounting services, even if it's being done at | | 21 | HCHK, HCHK may then email communications to G Club. Well, | | 22 | those communications, if they're responsive, have already | | 23 | been produced from our end to the trustee. | | 24 | I am still not -- I think he's conflating issues | | 25 | and making it a lot more complicated than it needs to be. | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 37 Because the fact of the matter is, those documents belong to G Club and only G Club. And he cannot do an end run around that situation simply because he's trying to get HCHK documents, documents held on an HCHK.com domain name. Those belong to HCHK. Documents that HCHK had are theirs. And I can't respond for their documents or how they kept them or what they did. What I can say is we, G Club, do have access to our documents and have produced what's responsive. THE COURT: Okay. I'm going to take the matter under advisement and will rule accordingly. Thank you. MR. LUFT: Thank you, Your Honor. MS. FORNOS: Thank you, Your Honor. THE COURT: So with regard to the order scheduling the hearing on the issue of the G Club documents, which appears in the main case at ECF 2270 and in the adversary at 157, those matters are taken under advisement. So then I believe, Trustee Despins, the only other matters on today's calendar are related to the trustee's request for a status conference regarding preservation of property of the estate. Is that correct? MR. DESPINS: That is correct, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. Please proceed. MR. DESPINS: Well, first I want to make sure that Mr. Conway was able to resolve his audio issues.

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 38 | |----|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | MR. CONWAY: I will give you a test now. Can you | | 2 | hear me? | | 3 | THE COURT: Okay. Yes, we can hear you. | | 4 | MR. DESPINS: Yes. Yes. | | 5 | THE COURT: Thank you. | | 6 | MR. CONWAY: I'm not sure what happened, but I'm | | 7 | on the phone now. | | 8 | THE COURT: Okay. Thank you. | | 9 | MR. DESPINS: So, Your Honor, I will try to make | | 10 | this relatively brief. And the request itself was very | | 11 | short, because the pictures are really worth a thousand | | 12 | words here. And I would say at the outset that we're doing | | 13 | this in the main case but also in the Greenwich Land case | | 14 | and the Taurus Management Mahwah case, because it's all -- | | 15 | for reasons we'll explain in a second, is all related. | | 16 | So the first thing I'd like to do is just briefly | | 17 | go through the exhibits, Your Honor. And the first thing to | | 18 | keep in mind, I believe, is the key dates here, which are | | 19 | February 2020, the purchasing of the Taconic house; October | | 20 | 12, 2020, Genever Holdings filing for Chapter 11; and | | 21 | December 2021, the closing of the Mahwah mansion; and | | 22 | February 15, 2022, the debtor's Chapter 11 filing date. | | 23 | I would say at the outset, Your Honor, that as we | | 24 | have done with status conferences in the past, this is not | | 25 | an evidentiary hearing. I'm saying this not because we |

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 39 | |----|------------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | cannot prove these various links that we've used and the | | 2 | pictures. We can put that into evidence eventually if we | | 3 | need to, so we have no doubts about that. But I want to | | 4 | make sure that, you know, people don't feel the need that -- | | 5 | to object to say, well, this link to Mr. Kwok's, you know, | | 6 | statement on this page has not been admitted. You know, | | 7 | we'll -- we can deal with evidentiary issues later. | | 8 | But the basic issue here is that I asked -- after | | 9 | the visit on September 1st, I asked members of the team | | 10 | to -- in my mind, I thought the issue was are there missing | | 11 | items. And, of course, they did that. But they went beyond | | 12 | what I asked for, and they said you should also know that a | | 13 | number of these items, like a lot, that are Mahwah mansion | | 14 | came from The Sherry Netherland. | | 15 | And this is what, Your Honor, Tabs 1 through 8 | | 16 | show is that you have various videos showing Mr. Kwok at The | | 17 | Sherry Netherland with a number of items that are now at the | | 18 | Mahwah mansion. And so you can see those through the | | 19 | presentation where -- and because eventually we get in the | | 20 | presentation in the various tabs to the Mahwah mansion | | 21 | itself where we show these items, where they are by picture | | 22 | or by videos or, you know, screenshots of videos. | | 23 | And we also show on Tabs 11, 12, 35, and 48 items | | 24 | that either were at The Sherry Netherland or the Taconic | | 25 | house, were at the Mahwah mansion at one point but don't |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 40 appear to be there anymore. So and, you know, this is pretty telling that this has -- it had to happen between March 15th and September 1st, because there's a video that you've seen that actually is admitted as evidence in -- at the Mahwah hearing where the two Kwok affiliates basically are going through the mansion to show how the -- beautiful the mansion is and all that. But through that, you see various pieces of arts on the wall, vases and things like that that we have screenshots of. And those are no longer there on September 1st. I would say at the outset that the I have no -- and I hope I don't live to regret this -- but at this time, I have no concerns about the current security at the Mahwah mansion, meaning from September 1st going forward, I've had various discussions with this gentleman. You know, I can never be a hundred percent sure, but I have a high degree of confidence that nothing is disappearing under his watch. But there are a number of issues here. One is clearly things did "disappear" or are no longer on the walls where they were based on the September 12th video. We know that from the September 1st video. And so that's number one.

Number two, there are a number of items that are still at the mansion but that came from Mr. Kwok through The

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 41 Sherry Netherland or that transmitted from The Sherry Netherland to the Taconic house, Taconic to Mahwah. And some of those have disappeared as well. So the issues are as follows. The first thing is, Your Honor, there was allegedly a manager for the alleged owner of Mahwah, and that was the driver -- the debtor's driver or bodyguard, Mr. Barnett. Yes. This person should be -- come into court and testify as to his knowledge of what happened to these items or not. And the same thing -- you know, Mr. Conway at the first day hearing, after a question from Your Honor -- you asked who is the human being you're dealing with who's running this, who's in control, and said Mr. -- I forget his name now. Yeah. Mr. Fallon, Mr. David Fallon. So that person should also come to court to tell us what they know or not about these items that disappeared under their watch. So that's number one. Number two, it's obvious that there's a movement of assets between these three properties. And now I'm focusing on Taconic Road. It's clear there's some items that were there that are now at Mahwah. And I would say shame on me for not asking for this before, but I think we were -- we did not know when we started the Greenwich Land adversary proceeding what we know now, which is, you know, pretty bad if you look at the summary judgment motion we

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 42 filed in that case in terms of dissipation of assets, cash, tons of cash, hundreds of thousands of dollars from that entity to all sorts of affiliates of the debtor, including Zeisler getting payments from that entity and the debtor's daughter, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm not here to argue this, but the point is, going back to the shame on me, I should have asked for a video tour of that property right at the time. But I thought it was -- would have been perceived as heavy-handed because, you know, what proof do I have that these people would do things like that. Well, now we have the proof in spades that they would do that. And, therefore, Your Honor, we believe there should be an immediate video tour so we establish a benchmark as we did for the Mahwah mansion on September 1st of what's in that house. The reason I'm saying this is I don't want to be overly confident, but I'm pretty sure we're going to get title to that house. And I don't want to get it and then end up with an -- you know, "missing items" as we have now experienced with Mahwah. And then there's another category which is not necessarily an emergency, but there are things that were moved from Taconic to Mahwah. For example, four motorcycles. And these are not like, you know, a Yamaha 250, Your Honor. These are high-end motorcycles, including

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 43 a Maserati Ducati. And we have pictures in there of Mr. Kwok riding motorcycles. Those were taken, and we have evidence of that, at the Taconic house. And, obviously, these motorcycles are now at the Mahwah mansion. And I don't think Mr. Conway is going to say that the motorcycles are there so that the members of the New Federation of the State of China can use the motorcycles for recreational purposes. Okay? So these are clearly Kwok assets. These are worth thousands and thousands of dollars. They're okay where they are. As I said, I'm not concerned at this time with the security at the Mahwah mansion. I want to be clear about that. But, clearly these are not under any circumstance Taurus Management assets. They're not on the list of assets by Taurus Management. We know who is the title owner of these motorcycles. And, you know, that would probably surprise you, but it's somebody who's related or has a close degree of relationship with a member of the Kwok family. So the point, Your Honor, is we need to address the immediate issue, which is what happened to the stuff at the Mahwah mansion. Two, we need a video tour of the Greenwich land property as soon as possible. And, three, we need to discuss eventually a procedure to extract from the Mahwah mansion things that even Taurus itself does not say

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 44 it owns but that are located at the Mahwah mansion such as the motorcycles and tons of other assets of Mr. Kwok in that property that are not listed on the Taurus Management assets and that we have pictures of at The Sherry Netherland. So I could take you, you know, through a painstaking review of a vase here or a couch there, but I think the pictures are pretty telling. And at this point, I'll stop and answer any questions Your Honor may have. THE COURT: So I do have a question or two just based upon what you've said in both the document that you filed requesting the status conference and what you've just said on the record. So this is a status conference. So are you planning on filing some kind of motion to require the -- you're talking about Mr. Kwok's bodyguard and Mr. Fallon, whom I believe Mr. Conway had mentioned at some point during a hearing in the Taurus Fund adversary proceeding. How are you -- how -- what is it that you are expecting the Court to do? MR. DESPINS: Yeah. Frankly, Your Honor -- and you might think we're cutting corners, but we're trying to save fees wherever we can. I believe the Court can sua sponte direct Taurus Management to produce those people at a hearing in court to answer these questions given the circumstances here. We're not talking about, you know, a briefing on the issue of alter ego. We're talking about

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 45 assets not being there. By the way, if we find them, great. That's wonderful. But I think -- and also I want to point out, there's a very expensive, expensive security system in Mahwah with cameras everywhere. So there should be -- somebody would control that, right? The "owner," Taurus, would have access to these videos. And that would show who took these paintings down and the vases and all that. So therefore, yes, we could file a motion, Your Honor. But we think that the Court sua sponte can order the -- these people to appear in court to answer these questions the same way you've directed Mr. Mitchell to appear and answer some questions in the past. And, you know, they're parties. Barnett is a defendant. Taurus Management is a defendant. And in the case of Greenwich Land, I think the Court also has the power sua sponte to order -- and I would think that, frankly, Mr. Major would consent to that, because if he doesn't consent, how does that look that, what, there's a concern here? I mean, this would be a two-hour video. We would do this very professionally. So I would hope that either they would consent to that or the Court would order it. Thank you. THE COURT: All right. Well, that's only the first part. Then the second part is that -- well, I guess

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 46 that is both. That's bringing the people into court and also seeking a video. But let's turn to the Taurus Fund situation first, because I think that's a little more direct insofar as, Mr. Conway, I ordered you and you did supply a list of assets owned by the Taurus Fund. And the debt -- the trustee is asserting that there are other assets located -- and I -- I'm fairly certain that I don't have it in front of me at the moment, that that order, you know, included a list of everything on the grounds or in the mansion, so everywhere associated with that property. And, apparently, the assertion is that there is many other -- there are many other items of property in the Mahwah mansion or on the grounds of the Mahwah mansion that are not listed in your list of assets. So have you had an opportunity to review what the trustee's saying versus what has been filed on behalf of the Taurus Fund in this adversary proceeding as to the assets that are owned by the Taurus Fund? MR. CONWAY: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Michael Conway. And since I didn't get my appearance on the record earlier, Michael Conway, Lazare Potter Giacovas & Moyle. I represent the defendants in the Taurus Fund matter. Your Honor, I have obviously not had time to go through item by item these picture. I truly don't

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 47 understand what the emergency is. I gathered from this motion that the trustee find -- found that there is additional objects at the Mahwah house that were not on our list. And my understanding is that that was not an uncommon thing for the New Federal State of China's events. They would bring in to stage -- whether it be for that video we watched in court or for the fundraising events, what have you. I do know this, that when I got involved, Your

Honor, which was literally the -- a day or two before the hearing, I instructed the folks not to remove anything. It didn't matter if it was on our list or otherwise. I felt that the -- this Court's injunction was fairly expansive and that nothing should be removed from the premises, whether we owned it or not.

So I think you'll find that that might be one reason why if there is anybody out here who claims this other property they haven't removed it, because you said don't. And as the trustee has indicated, we have a security force in place that's not letting anybody in, not letting anybody remove anything.

So, yeah, there are -- is property on the premises that's not -- that does not belong to Taurus Fund. It was brought there to stage for various events. But that does not seem to be a Taurus Fund issue. It seems to be an issue

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 48 related to whatever entity the trustee says owns that property. THE COURT: Well, I'm not sure that's accurate. I mean, you're -- right now, the Taurus Fund, you've come in and said the Taurus Fund owns the property, that -- and that you're in control of the property. Well, if -- and it wasn't just about removal. It was about bringing things to the Mahwah mansion, apparently. That's the assertion since the March 15 events of this year. So I'm not sure I would agree with you that it's somebody else's problem. You're in control. Your clients are in control of this property. You've agreed to the security firm. I've ordered that there be a security firm given what all the assertions were. And I'm not sure why you can't, as counsel to Mahwah -- I mean, excuse me, to the Taurus Fund indicate what is on the property or at the property that you don't own. Remember, we've got insurance issues here too. We have no insurance on this property. So the trustee says -- MR. CONWAY: There's no reason to -- THE COURT: And, wait, let me -- MR. CONWAY: I'm sorry. THE COURT: -- let me just finish my thought for a second, and then I'm happy to hear from you. But the

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 49 trustee says -- and I have no -- you know, I'm listening to what the trustee says. There isn't anything before me that establishes what he's saying. But he's saying that, for example, there were four expensive motorcycles removed from the house in Greenwich that are in Mahwah. Now, if that's in Mahwah or on the property or in the premises, your people should know that. And I don't see what the burden would be for them to tell me that. I want to know what's there at the property, not just what you own. I mean, you could -- for -- because, for example -- I mean, you're saying they bring stuff in to stage things. Well, I don't think they ever did that before March 15, 2023, number one. Number two, that's like saying somebody could pull up to the Mahwah mansion with a -- I don't know, a Ferrari and let it sit there, and you could say, yeah, well, it's not ours. Well, you know, you'd have to account to -- for that to this Court at this point given the events that have occurred and the orders that are in place in the adversary proceeding. I think that's -- I don't -- I think that is important. I mean, the -- we asked you for a list of all -- I didn't ask you. I ordered a list of all assets. I didn't understand that that meant that there were a lot of other

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 50 assets there that you don't own, that your clients claim they don't own. Well, if they claim they don't own them, I want to know what it is they claim they don't own that's on the property. I think that's more than reasonable under the circumstances of the case, considering that none of them have come forward to the Court individually and -- even though we've been told or I've been told once or twice -- there's two different names I've heard. So I want that done. That's easy. And I'll give you a week to do that. No more than a week. I want it by noontime on the 31st of October. I want to know what else -- MR. CONWAY: (Indiscernible). THE COURT: -- is at the property besides the list of the assets that you were already required to file with this Court, even if they're not owned by Taurus Fund. Because then why are they there if you don't own them? It's not about -- MR. CONWAY: May I respond? THE COURT: It's not about a company coming in and setting up an event. MR. CONWAY: May I respond, Your Honor? THE COURT: Yes, you may. MR. CONWAY: I don't think that there's any

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 51 | |----|---------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | question in the trustee's mind as to what's there. The | | 2 | trustee has done extensive inventory. Now, if what you're | | 3 | saying is you want us to do a walkthrough and say, okay, | | 4 | that item is not ours, that item is not ours, that item is | | 5 | not ours, I -- we're happy to do that. | | 6 | The problem is going to be -- well, I mean, it's | | 7 | not really a problem. It's we know what's there, and we | | 8 | know what's ours. And so we can deduce what's not ours. | | 9 | But I'm not sure still what the emergency is. It | | 10 | sounds like what the trustee is saying -- and this was -- | | 11 | and I -- you mischaracterized it, with all due respect, Your | | 12 | Honor. I didn't say it wasn't our problem. I said that | | 13 | there's persons with more knowledge. | | 14 | If, for instance, the Taconic house was the place | | 15 | that was originally the location for a piece of art, then | | 16 | they can produce somebody who says, yes, that piece of art | | 17 | belongs to X. All I can do is it does not belong to Taurus | | 18 | Fund. There's a difference, and it's of limited value for | | 19 | us to say -- | | 20 | THE COURT: Well -- | | 21 | MR. CONWAY: -- that doesn't belong to us. | | 22 | THE COURT: You may think -- | | 23 | MR. CONWAY: What you want is to know who it | | 24 | belongs to. | | 25 | THE COURT: You may think it's of limited value to | | | Fiore Reporting and Transcription Service, Inc. |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 52 you, but it's not as limited value to these bankruptcy cases. So, yes, you're going to do that. And it's not this item. It's the -- let's presume the trustee's correct. I don't know what kind of motorcycle he said. He said some word I've heard before about an expensive motorcycle brand. Then you need to say that the red Maserati motorcycle, which it isn't that, but whatever it was, that's located -- MR. CONWAY: Understood. THE COURT: -- in the garage or in -- somewhere on the land is not ours. I mean, you know, what's what you're going to do. And I'm -- and the trustee can be there with you or have a representative or your security guards take pictures. I mean, I thought we had a detailed log of all comings and goings at the property. So where is that? MR. CONWAY: We do, Your Honor. No. There's been nothing nefarious or anything like that. We got involved in this case. It's been status quo ever since. There's nothing that's happened. And there's nothing in the motion that suggests that anything has happened since you got involved with this house. MR. DESPINS: No. THE COURT: Yes, there is. MR. DESPINS: No, you -- MR. CONWAY: No, there's not.

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 53 THE COURT: There's a lot of things that have suggested things have happened, that there are things that have come into -- MR. CONWAY: Okay. Well, I'm just saying, Your Honor, I read their motion very thoroughly, and I didn't see a single thing that had anything to do with anything that's happened since this case was filed. MR. DESPINS: Well, Your Honor, he's correct, but that doesn't change the analysis. Meaning Taurus was the owner all along. So the issue -- he wants to talk about what's not there is what's on the list. But critically here, items have disappeared from the walls at the mansion owned -- allegedly owned by Taurus. That is the first order of business from the trustee's point of view. Where is that stuff? And they should come and testify as to that. MR. CONWAY: So, Your Honor, the other thing I was going to mention is that if you want us to go to the property and walk through even with the trustee, I don't think that the order as written even allows me to go to the property. So we'd need something that says that Mr. Conway and whoever he needs to go can go and do the walkthrough on the property. MR. DESPINS: And, Your Honor, if I may? I think we should stage this. The first order of business is the

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 54 missing items. THE COURT: Well, you need to -- MR. DESPINS: We need evidence. THE COURT: You need to have a list of the missing items, Trustee Despins, right? MR. DESPINS: We have -- they're all listed in the pictures with big circles and the pages. I can, just for the record, give them again. Tab 11, 12, 35, 48. Those are the tabs that contain the missing items. And I don't expect -- THE COURT: That you say should be in the Mahwah mansion? That's what you're saying? MR. DESPINS: Yes. That -- THE COURT: They should be in the Mahwah mansion? MR. DESPINS: That we're -- we have pictures of those items in the Mahwah mansion. But on September 1st, those pictures show an empty wall or a empty desk where there was a vase or, you know, other things that are missing. That's very clear from -- and I -- you know, to be fair to Mr. Conway, he may not have had a chance to review what we filed. But it's clearly laid out there exactly what's missing or -- and I hope it will be found, like the piano. I don't know where it's -- it's floating somewhere. That's worth \$250,000. I mean, the point is, that should be

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 55 at the Mahwah mansion, and it's not there anymore per the September 1st visit. So that happened between March 15th and September 1st. And Taurus was the owner. Mr. Fallon or whoever was in charge at that time, Mr. Barnett, should come and explain to the Court what happened to those items or where they are. Or maybe they can return them. MR. CONWAY: And with respect to that, Your Honor, there's no item that was owned by Taurus that's missing. What he's suggesting is that there's items that appeared for a limited period of time that belong to someone else that are no longer there. So we're going to have to find somebody who can explain to us who owned those items and where are they now. But it's not -- MR. DESPINS: No, no. MR. CONWAY: -- on Taurus' person. MR. DESPINS: No. Who owns it is -- I know who owns it. It's Kwok. But the point is, that's irrelevant. They were in the Taurus house, and they're no longer there. And that happened under Taurus management. They should know, because that's their house, right? They controlled it and all that. They should know what happened to it. And if they don't, that speaks for itself. But they should at least know about the videos, how to retrieve the data from the extensive security system Case 22-50073 Doc 2301 Filed 11/02/23 Entered 11/02/23 09:23:46 Page 55 of 72

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 56 | |----|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | that is there to show who was in the house, you know, after | | 2 | March 15th, who took these paintings and artwork from the | | 3 | premises. That should be in the videos. And at least they | | 4 | should be able to tell us that they checked that and that | | 5 | they don't know. | | 6 | But the point is that, Your Honor, that is the | | 7 | first order of business. Because the other items, Your | | 8 | Honor, that are there and are Kwok's -- clearly Kwok's -- I | | 9 | think it's all Kwok's. But for the record, that are clearly | | 10 | from Kwok, you know, they're not going to be stolen now. I | | 11 | feel comfortable. But right now, there's no emergency as to | | 12 | that, although we should get to that, and Taurus should be | | 13 | providing the information we've asked for, Your Honor. | | 14 | But the first order of business is, what happened | | 15 | to the missing items? And Taurus cannot say, well, I'm | | 16 | sorry, it's not my stuff. It was at the property. That's | | 17 | clearly established from the evidence we produced. | | 18 | MR. CONWAY: And just to be clear -- keep the | | 19 | record absolutely complete on that, Your Honor, it is not | | 20 | the responsibility of a homeowner if somebody brings a piece | | 21 | of property to their home to then keep an inventory of it | | 22 | thereon -- thereafter wherever they might take it. Just | | 23 | because somebody -- | | 24 | THE COURT: We don't -- | | 25 | MR. CONWAY: -- brought something to the | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 57 property -- THE COURT: Mr. Connolly? I mean, Mr. Conway? MR. CONWAY: -- and then took it off the property -- THE COURT: Mr. Conway? MR. CONWAY: Pardon? THE COURT: We're not talking about somebody bringing something to a homeowner's house. So let's move on from that. These are -- we all know what we're talking about. MR. CONWAY: Okay. We are, Your Honor. I'm sorry, Your Honor, but we are. THE COURT: We're talking about serious issues here with regard to assets. So, look, this is what I'm going to -- MR. CONWAY: We're talking about a couple of vases -- THE COURT: This is what -- no. Excuse me. MR. CONWAY: -- and one calligraphy -- THE COURT: Excuse me. MR. CONWAY: -- and that's it. THE COURT: Excuse me. This is what I'm going to do. You and Trustee Despins are going to have a conference after this hearing, and you're going to figure out how this is going to work out or not. And we're going to continue --

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 58 and then I will have a further conference with both of you on this issue. I'm not going to listen to it doesn't matter if somebody else brought some property to this property, and it's not our problem. That's not going to work. So you need to figure out whether you can come to some form of an agreement on how this is going to work or not. But that is not going to happen. We're not going to have a situation where there is property other than what it is owned by the Taurus Fund at that mansion during the pendency of this adversary proceeding. You need to see if you can work this out. And if you can't, then the Court will make some determination. But I'm not doing -- I'm not going to listen to these arguments about if somebody brings somebody -- something to your house, you don't have to worry about it. That's ridiculous. Okay? We're not dealing with that. MR. CONWAY: It's not ridiculous, Your Honor. But that aside, Your Honor is suggesting that you don't want these extra property to be at the house? Because that's an issue that the trustee and I can clearly work out. THE COURT: That's not what I'm suggesting at all. I didn't say anything to that -- to -- MR. CONWAY: Well, that's what I heard. That's why I'm asking the question, Your Honor. Case 22-50073 Doc 2301 Filed 11/02/23 Entered 11/02/23 09:23:46 Page 58 of 72

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 59 THE COURT: I didn't ask -- I said to you, I want to know what other property is there that your client claims it doesn't own. And I want to know specifically what other property is there that your client claims it doesn't own and where exactly it's located. And maybe you and Mr. Despins are going to go through it together this week and go to the house and get that done. Because I'm not going to spend my time on this. This is a waste of the Court's time. MR. CONWAY: Your Honor, that's clear. That's clear. My confusion was when you said that you didn't want the property there during the pendency of the case that confused me. THE COURT: No. I said during the pendency of the case, we're not going to have arguments about property that's at the property that you don't -- your client doesn't own. I want to know what property is at the property that your client doesn't own, and I want your client to swear to it. Where is the person? There's never a person for Taurus Fund who signs or does anything. So your client's going to swear that they went through this property, and this is the property that they don't own, and this is what it is, and this is where it's located. And they're going to swear it's never going to be

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 60 removed until further order of the Court. And that could be on many ways. Somebody who claims they own it could come in and ask for the Court to allow it to be removed. There's many different ways that could be accomplished. But with regard to this situation, that's how it's going to work. So I'm going to give you 48 -- I'm going to give you less than 48 hours to report back to me on how it's going to work. And then if it -- there isn't an agreement, then I'll do whatever I think is appropriate under the circumstances. I don't know what that's going to be yet, because I want to hear what you both have to say after you've had this conversation. But you can't have somebody -- you filed a list. I don't believe, Mr. Conway, it was ever signed by your client. I think it was -- you submitted it under your -- as counsel. And that's fine. But now things have changed. And I want your client to sign under penalty of perjury the assets that are at the property that it claims it does not own specifically by item and location. Do you have any questions about that? MR. CONWAY: No. It just seems like we need to get the total inventory to -- as the house is today, which means that the trustee and I need to go there and do that. And then we can sign the appropriate piece of paper. THE COURT: That's fine. So you can talk about

Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 61 that. Now, Mr. Major, the trustee's making representations that there are -- there is property in the Greenwich house that's been removed from the Greenwich house as well, and he wants to go in and take a video. What's the -- what's your position with regard to his wanting to go into the Greenwich property and inventory what is in the Greenwich property? MR. MAJOR: Your Honor, I'd like an opportunity to confer with my client and to review the trustee's motion -- not -- well, it was in a motion to set the status conference which was filed yesterday and filed as an emergency. Now, I don't think it's fair to my client for the trustee, who no doubt -- I mean, these videos -- or, you know, I guess they're still shots from videos which are now three-plus years old, are being relied upon to set an emergency to then ask for substantive relief today. And the motion was filed by the trustee yesterday knowing for sure that the Court already had In Re Kwok matters scheduled today and that the status conference would be scheduled right away. I haven't had time to address the assertions in the trustee's motion. And I'm going to need time to do that with my client in the first instance and an interpreter so that I can understand what the assertions are.

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 62 But just to set the stage here, what the trustee has apparently done -- and I'm sure the time records that the trustee attaches with his various fee applications will reflect when his team first started looking at these Kwok videos online. But I'm sure it was quite a while ago. I think that to call -- with respect to Greenwich Land, to call this an emergency motion and then to ask us in less than 24 hours to respond when there's no motion pending seeking any relief other than setting the status conference is not fair to my client, and it doesn't give me an adequate opportunity, frankly, to address the Court. I think that the most important thing for me to be able to do is to review the motion and the various photographs with my client and understand what the position is. But the idea for the trustee to say that I would just come on and consent and if I don't consent to him invading my client's home and videoing her home and that if I don't consent that that somehow is a tell that we're concerned about something is not -- is, frankly, not a reasonable position to take. I'd like to know when the trustee first came to the conclusion that property had been moved from Taconic to the Mahwah property as he asserts in his motion and why I wasn't approached about that. Because we're now in front of the Court. I'm not in a position where I can respond

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 63 | |----|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | substantively for the Court, because I haven't been given an | | 2 | opportunity to do the research I need to do. And I don't | | 3 | know what my client's position would be after I, you know, | | 4 | get a better understanding of the facts. | | 5 | I think the best thing to do would be to continue | | 6 | this as to Greenwich land and Mrs. Guo, my client, for a | | 7 | week. Let me get to the bottom of it. I'm happy to confer | | 8 | with a trustee in the meantime. But, frankly, we've been, | | 9 | you know, hit with this, and I haven't had any time to get | | 10 | to the bottom of it. | | 11 | So, Your Honor, I don't know what to say. I tried | | 12 | watching some of the videos from which they took the still | | 13 | shots. They're not in English, so I can't determine, you | | 14 | know, what was said by the speaker on those videos. I | | 15 | just -- I'm not in a position to respond substantively for | | 16 | the Court. | | 17 | I can't imagine, though, that there's an emergency | | 18 | created by these three-plus-year-old videos that would | | 19 | require me to respond substantively in less than 24 hours. | | 20 | MR. DESPINS: Your Honor, if I may? | | 21 | THE COURT: Well, the status conference motion | | 22 | didn't require a response, Attorney Major. So I just -- it | | 23 | didn't require a response. But I asked you what your | | 24 | position would be, and I understand your position that | | 25 | you've just articulated that you'd like at least this to be | | | |

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 64 | |----|-----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | continued for a week so you can talk -- you can look at | | 2 | information, you can discuss it with your clients, and then, | | 3 | I assume, have a follow-up conversation with the trustee. | | 4 | Not a follow-up. You haven't had a conversation. But what | | 5 | I'm saying is, after you discuss this with your clients, and | | 6 | you review this information, you would have a discussion | | 7 | with the trustee. | | 8 | That's your request, correct? | | 9 | MR. MAJOR: Yes, Your Honor. Just to put a little | | 10 | bit of context on why I'm asking for a week, which I think | | 11 | in the normal case would be a perfectly fine amount of time. | | 12 | But it's not a situation where I can just call up the | | 13 | general counsel and say here's the situation, I just emailed | | 14 | you some pictures, let's talk about it. | | 15 | I have to set a meeting in person with my client | | 16 | and with an interpreter who has a day job in the courts. | | 17 | And so I have to logistically arrange that meeting. It's | | 18 | the only way I'm able to effectively communicate with my | | 19 | client. And so I need a little bit of time to be able to | | 20 | have that meeting, get to the bottom of it, and then have an | | 21 | initial discussion with the trustee or his lawyers to figure | | 22 | out the best way forward. | | 23 | THE COURT: Okay. | | 24 | MR. DESPINS: And, Your Honor, if I may? We | | 25 | obtained confirmation that the motorcycles were at the | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 65 Taconic property for the first time on Friday of last week. And, you know, Mr. Major's position sounds -- would be incredibly reasonable. I would agree with it in every case. Except in this case, there's an injunction that said that Greenwich Land should not deplete their bank accounts. Of course they did. We know that. Look at the summary judgment. I'm not asking you to rule on that. But, you know, they did that. They actually depleted the bank accounts. And so, therefore, this is not like a gentlemanly dispute between two groups here. There's bad conduct, bad actions. And so a week in this case is a year, because a lot of things can happen in a week. Not the debtor, but the debtor's wife here doesn't work. We can get an interpreter there tomorrow. And it's a pretty simple issue. We're not asking them to admit to anything. It's just preservation of evidence, which is a video. So, Your Honor, I wouldn't give them a week given the bad behavior here. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were siphoned out of this company from the sale of an asset that PAX had issued a notice of -- it's not -- it was not a lis pendens, but the equivalent of that under Delaware law. And the -- all that money went to affiliates, went to Zeisler, among other people.

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 66 And now we're supposed to say, well, you know, let's be reasonable and all that. We're beyond that point, Your Honor. This is -- the reason it's an emergency is that we just discovered that confirmation on Friday. We're dealing with bad actors. I'm sorry to say that. I apologize. I wish I never had to say that. But bad actors who do bad things that defy court orders all the time, including Greenwich Land depleting its bank accounts while there was an injunction by Your Honor to do -- not to do that. So I don't know. I don't want to be dramatic about it, but it's of concern. So he doesn't need a week to do that. It's a simple procedure. So we'd ask Your Honor not to agree to the week extension. THE COURT: Mr. Major, do you have any response? MR. MAJOR: Your Honor, just -- yeah. I'm sorry. THE COURT: No. Go right ahead. MR. MAJOR: Your Honor, I'm not asking for a week extension for anything. The only thing that the trustee asked for was for a status conference. And I appeared at the status conference in less than 24 hours. Now what the trustee is saying is let's dispense with motion practice, let's dispense with due process, and let me invade this woman's home and videotape it, even though they know that she has legitimate security concerns.

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 67 And there have been disputes in the past about what the trustee has done with photographic and videographic pictures relating to the debtor's family members. I'm not asking for an extension. Right now, there's nothing pending that would require us to respond other than appearing here today. What I am asking for is an opportunity to speak with my client and show her the pictures and understand what the assertions by the trustee are. The trustee, he was careful in his response. He said he just got confirmation that the motorcycles were, in fact, at the Taconic property. Well, he knew they were in Mahwah, New Jersey, I think if I understand the papers correctly, as of about six or seven weeks ago on September 1st. MR. DESPINS: That's right. MR. MAJOR: And the pictures that the trustee says are the debtor riding those motorcycles at the Taconic Road property, those appear to be -- from the plain language of the trustee's submission yesterday, appear to be videos that date back to 2021. It doesn't -- it's nothing that has happened recently. And so I don't understand why I can't have a little bit of time to speak with my client, to confer with the trustee's lawyers, because they didn't reach out to me

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 68 before their filing yesterday, and see if this is something that can be resolved. And if not, we could probably come up with a -- I think a streamlined procedure to put the issue to the Court. But I'm just asking for an opportunity to be able to speak with my client intelligently and understand what the assertions are here. But I just want to be clear, I'm not asking for an extension, because there's nothing that exists right now that requires me to do anything than I've already done. THE COURT: Anything further from anyone? Okay. Mr. Conway and Mr. Despins, you're going to meet and confer and then report to the Court in a written report by 2 p.m. on Thursday whether or not you've reached some form of an agreement with regard to the assets that are at the property that are not owned by the Taurus Fund. And the Taurus Fund, regardless of whether there's an agreement reached or not, is going to file a list signed by a representative of the Taurus Fund, under penalty of perjury, by next Tuesday, the 31st of October, specifically delineating all the assets that are at the estate in Mahwah, regardless of whether they're owned by the Taurus Fund. So the trustee and Mr. Conway, your first requirement is to meet and confer and then file by 2 p.m. on Thursday a report with regard to that meet and confer and to

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 69 see what, if anything, you've agreed to with regard to the issues raised in the status request. And then, Mr. Conway, as I said, regardless of that, your client has to sign under penalty of perjury by Tuesday, you know, as far as an affidavit or a declaration by Tuesday the 31st, a list of all assets on or in the Mahwah mansion. And I think we've, in prior orders, been very clear about that it includes something that could be on the grounds of the Mahwah mansion. It doesn't need to be inside the Mahwah mansion. Mr. Major and Mr. Despins, you're going to meet and confer and file a report by Friday at 2 p.m. as to whether you have any form of an agreement with regard to the Greenwich property. And if you don't, then I'll act -- I don't know what I will do, but I'll see what I -- what I'll figure out. But, Mr. Major, I understand that you need some time to talk to your client. But today's Tuesday. It's 3:00. And I'm giving you until Friday at 2 p.m. to try to have those conversations and see what, if anything, you can accomplish between now and Friday. And then we will go from there. Does anyone have any questions? MR. CONWAY: Just one, Your Honor. After we file whatever we file with you on Thursday, I'm going to -- I

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 70 | |----|----------------------------------------------------------------| | 1 | anticipate I'm going to need some sort of a -- an order that | | 2 | just says that whatever the plan is for making a visit is | | 3 | ordered by Your Honor so the -- you know, the security | | 4 | doesn't stop us. I anticipate they're going to need -- | | 5 | THE COURT: Yes. | | 6 | MR. CONWAY: -- to bring in the manager -- | | 7 | THE COURT: Yes. | | 8 | MR. CONWAY: -- and so on. And but we can work | | 9 | that out. The trustee and I can work that out and put it in | | 10 | our report to you. I just want to give you the heads-up | | 11 | that I'm anticipating, based on the injunction, that that -- | | 12 | I'll need that. | | 13 | MR. DESPINS: I believe, Your Honor, under the | | 14 | order the trustee may authorize people to give access. So | | 15 | I'm sure I can authorize Mr. Conway to have access or one of | | 16 | his colleagues or -- so we can work that out. | | 17 | THE COURT: Well, you -- exactly. You can talk | | 18 | about that during your meet and confer. And if the existing | | 19 | order already can provide for that without a further order, | | 20 | fine. And if it can't, then a further order can enter. | | 21 | Okay? | | 22 | MR. DESPINS: Thank you, Your Honor. | | 23 | MR. CONWAY: Thank you, Your Honor. | | 24 | THE COURT: Okay. So that'll be the filing on -- | | 25 | with Mr. Conway and Trustee Despins. | | | |

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Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 71 And then Mr. Major and Mr. -- and Trustee Despins, you'll file your filing on Friday by 2 p.m. And then we'll see where we go from there. But you're all ordered to meet and confer and see what you can accomplish with regard to these issues. I understand that you may not be able to accomplish everything or anything, but we'll -- I'm ordering you to try to -- to see what you can do. And then we will take the next steps. So is there anything further we need to address this afternoon in the Kwok Chapter 11 jointly administered cases or any of the adversary proceedings that are on the docket today? MR. DESPINS: Not from the trustee, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. Then thank you, all. That was our last hearing today, so Court is adjourned. IN UNISON: Thank you, Your Honor. THE COURTROOM DEPUTY: Court is adjourned. MR. DESPINS: Thank you. Thank you, Your Honor. (Proceedings concluded at 2:49 p.m.)

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| | Ho Wan Kwok - October 24, 2023 | 72 | |----|------------------------------------------------------------|----| | 1 | I, CHRISTINE FIORE, court-approved | | | 2 | transcriber and certified electronic reporter and | | | 3 | transcriber, certify that the foregoing is a correct | | | 4 | transcript from the official electronic sound recording of | | | 5 | the proceedings in the above-entitled matter. | | | 6 | | | | 7 | | | | 8 | | | | 9 | November 1, 2023 | | | 10 | Christine Fiore, CERT | | | 11 | | | | 12 | | | | 13 | | | | 14 | | | | 15 | | | | 16 | | | | 17 | | | | 18 | | | | 19 | | | | 20 | | | | 21 | | | | 22 | | | | 23 | | | | 24 | | | | 25 | | | | | | |