Guo Wengui / Miles Guo — bankruptcy case · ORDER · ECF #546

UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT BRIDGEPORT DIVISION In Re \* Case No. 22-50073(JAM) \* HO WAN KWOK, \* Bridgeport, Connecticut \* July 6, 2022 Debtor. \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* \* TRANSCRIPT OF APPLICATION FOR ORDER APPROVING APPOINTMENT OF CHAPTER 11 TRUSTEE BEFORE THE HONORABLE JULIE A. MANNING UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY JUDGE APPEARANCES: For the Debtor: JEFFREY L. JONAS, ESQ. Brown Rudnick, LLP Seven Times Square New York, NY 10036 For the Creditor, Pacific PETER FRIEDMAN, ESQ. Alliance Asia Opportunity STUART M. SARNOFF, ESQ. Fund L.P.: O'Melveny & Myers LLP Times Square Tower 7 Times Square New York, NY 10036 PATRICK BIRNEY, ESQ. Robinson & Cole 28 Trumbull Street Hartford, CT 06103 Proceedings recorded by electronic sound recording, transcript produced by transcription service. **Fiore Reporting and Transcription Service, Inc. 4 Research Drive, Suite 402 Shelton, Connecticut 06484 (203)929-9992**

APPEARANCES Cont'd: For the Creditors Committee: IRVE GOLDMAN, ESQ. Pullman & Comley 850 Main Street Bridgeport, CT 06601 For the Creditor, Rui Ma: KRISTEN MAYHEW, ESQ. McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter 225 Liberty Street 36th Floor New York, NY 10281 For the U.S. Trustee: HOLLEY L. CLAIBORN, ESQ. Office of the United States Trustee The Giaimo Federal Building 150 Court Street, Room 302 New Haven, CT 06510 For the Creditor, JAY MARSHALL WOLMAN, ESQ. Logan Cheng: Randazza Legal Group, PLLC 100 Pearl Street, 14th Floor Hartford, CT 06103

(Proceedings commenced at 3:07 p.m.) THE COURT: I would like to take appearances for the record, starting with the debtor's counsel, please. MR. JONAS: Good afternoon, Your Honor. It's Jeff Jonas from Brown Rudnick on behalf of the debtor. THE COURT: Good afternoon. And counsel for PAX? MR. FRIEDMAN: Good afternoon, Your Honor. It's Peter Friedman, O'Melveny & Myers. Mr. Sarnoff and Mr. Patrick Birney from Robinson & Cole are joining me. THE COURT: Good afternoon. And counsel for the creditors committee? MR. GOLDMAN: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Irve Goldman, Pullman & Comley, representing the creditors committee. THE COURT: And counsel for the creditors Rui Ma and two other creditors? I just don't have it in front of me. I'm sorry. You are on mute, Attorney Mayhew. MS. MAYHEW: Thank you, Your Honor. Sorry about that. Good afternoon. Kristen Mayhew, McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter, on behalf of creditors Rui Ma, Weican Meng and Zheng Wu. THE COURT: Good afternoon. And counsel for the Office of the United States

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Trustee? MS. CLAIBORN: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Holley Claiborn for the U.S. Trustee. THE COURT: Good afternoon. Is there anyone's appearance I didn't take and that needs to be noted for the record? MR. WOLMAN: Good afternoon, Your Honor. Jay Wolman, of Randazza Legal Group, for creditor Logan Cheng. THE COURT: You know, I'm sorry, Mr. Wolman. On the video I can't see everyone at the same time so I didn't see you. I apologize. Is there anyone else that would like to note their appearance for the record. (No audible response.) THE COURT: Okay. Then I will turn -- you know, this is a continued hearing from yesterday with regard to the status of the appointment of a Chapter 11 trustee in this matter. And I know, Attorney Claiborn, you told me yesterday that it was not likely there would be any progress with regard to the appointment of a Chapter 11 trustee, a successor trustee. Obviously -- I didn't look at the docket, but I believe nothing's been filed, so I would just ask you to provide a report to the Court on where things stand.

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MS. CLAIBORN: Thank you, Your Honor. Preliminarily I wanted to circle back to a topic we discussed yesterday and I want to respond to some of the concerns that the Court raised with respect to the absence of information on the docket about the conflicts that caused the withdrawal of the notice of appointment for Mr. Whitely. We heard the Court. We wanted to let the Court know that there is a continuing duty, an obligation, on the part of every trustee to continue to search out and disclose conflicts that may come to light and that's exactly what happened in this particular case. What was uncovered was a connection to Bravo Luck that prompted the U.S. Trustee and the trustee to reach a

consensus that the trustee should not stay in place and that we should address the situation.

And so having not encountered that particular event -- series of events before, the determination was made that the best way to handle it at that time was to do a withdrawal of the application to avoid the Court's approval of that candidate. And we wanted to avoid creating further problems.

Turning to where we are now, since yesterday we have been in communications with PAX and with the committee and with other creditors. We are also in constant communication right now with two trustee candidates. There

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are ongoing efforts to complete conflicts checks. And the current hope and intention of the U.S. Trustee is to appoint a trustee tomorrow. THE COURT: Okay. Thank you. And I thank you for the explanation of everything that you noted on the record today. With regard to tomorrow, would you then be filing your notice of appointment and application that you filed similarly with regard to the -- similarly with regard to the candidate that accepted the appointment last week? MS. CLAIBORN: Yes, Your Honor. It would be the same process. THE COURT: So the hope is that you would be able to accomplish that tomorrow? MS. CLAIBORN: That is the current hope. THE COURT: Okay. And if that's accomplished then I would suggest that we have a hearing on Friday and get the trustee appointed immediately. Does anyone have any concern about that, assuming the United States Trustee's Office is able to finalize what it needs to finalize and then file on the docket the notice of appointment and the application for approval? (No audible response.) THE COURT: Okay. The hearing on Friday, I would argue -- but I'm happy to hear other perspectives -- does

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not need to be in person because I believe -- although if anyone disagrees, I'd like you to voice the disagreement now -- that it would be somewhat perfunctory in that what the United States Trustee's Office is asking for -- and what -- although the rules aren't well written, you could argue the rule says is necessary, is another order appointing -- approving the appointment of the specific person, aside from the fact that it's already been ordered to be appointed, so I think it would be somewhat perfunctory. And I agree with Attorney Claiborn that every

trustee and professional has ongoing obligations with regard to conflicts and other issues no matter what chapter of the code they're serving under.

And if there is some reason why any of the -- any party in the case felt there was a problem with the trustee, that they'd have to either vocalize it at the hearing on Friday and/or file a subsequent motion under the applicable sections of the bankruptcy code and the rules.

So I see that there's no sense to delay this once there is -- the appointment process from the United States Trustee's Office is complete.

Does anyone wish to be heard on that issue? (No audible response.) THE COURT: Okay. Then I -- Attorney Claiborn, what I will ask the courtroom deputy to do is to let me know

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as soon as possible when someone sees -- if something's filed tomorrow, then if it's seen, then we'll schedule a hearing to be held on Friday on that. I don't know what time yet because obviously you may need part of the day tomorrow to complete your process. And then if it doesn't get completed until Friday, then any hearing on Monday would be remote as well. But that's when the hearing will be. I mean, we can't -- the passage of time is not beneficial from the Court's perspective. I don't know about anybody else, but we need to have the trustee in place and functioning as soon as possible. Anyone else wish to be heard on any issues this afternoon? (No audible response.) THE COURT: The one thing I will note, I think today is the last day to file any changes to the errata sheet of the -- of prior hearings, including, I think, the May 25th hearing. So if anybody has any changes, if they don't get filed today, then I'm going to enter an order. Probably, Mr. Friedman, because you ordered the official transcript, I think -- I'd have to go back and review that -- to have your office communicate and deliver the errata sheet to the reporter so that the transcript can be corrected.

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MR. FRIEDMAN: Yes, Your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. All right. Well, then we will -- thank you for the update. Go ahead. MR. FRIEDMAN: I believe we will be -- THE COURT: Go ahead, Attorney Friedman. MR. FRIEDMAN: Your Honor, it's Pete Friedman. I believe we will be filing some brief errata this afternoon. THE COURT: Okay. All right. Thank you. MR. FRIEDMAN: Thank you, Your Honor. THE COURT: Then we will see what happens over the course of the day tomorrow. And if something is filed tomorrow, we'll have a hearing on Friday. And if something isn't filed until Friday, we'll have a hearing on Monday. If nothing is filed between now and Friday, then we still might have a hearing on Monday because we need to have the Court's order have the impact and effect it's intended to have. So hearing nothing further from anyone, if there is a hearing scheduled -- I'm looking to the courtroom deputy now -- would we indicate, provide the information to all the counsel about the hearing? THE CLERK: Yes. THE COURT: Okay. Okay. Because it will be remote, we'll provide all that information to you. Okay?

All right. Then I think that concludes the hearing in the Kwok matter today. And we have no further hearings today, so court is adjourned. ALL COUNSEL: Thank you, Your Honor. (Proceedings concluded at 3:18 p.m.) I, CHRISTINE FIORE, court-approved transcriber and certified electronic reporter and transcriber, certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from the official electronic sound recording of the proceedings in the above- entitled matter. 14 July 13, 2022 15 Christine Fiore, CERT Transcriber