essential facts basically undisputed two thousand and sixteen lawyers and investigators trying to figure out why certain american companies were being repeatedly shut out doing were well funded and well connected would use all of their influence to try to derail that a geisha and once they learned of it the corporation the legal fees and expenses of pursuing this litigation allegations and you don't have you don't have much time and the district court never got to the merits of your complaint so you may want to turn to some of the issues that you need to have us resolve in your favor if you're going to proceed doctrine which you say cut to in your favor because at the time that the trust was created the recognized government of venezuela was the one that went forward to allow the creation of the trust but to what extent does the act of state doctrine allow or require a court to figure out whether or not a government official has the authority to act so for example if you if you had a let's court be required to find out whether under venezuelan law that petroleum engineer could authorize the creation of the trust not not if the government  here you have the oil minister jens rayleigh and the attorney general of venezuela write but how do we know that but how do we know that those two individuals in their official capacities are able to b but what is important is that the active state doctrine says if the government of venezuela gets to make that determination that is not a determination for the u s courts to make once the government of venezuela takes the position that these people are authorized and these people were the government of venezuela this was a minister of oil and it was the attorney general of venezuela people may say they shouldn't have been there as a question lot for the court and that the court can consider any sources and including on appeal it's not limited to whatever record is was produced with respect to the issue of authenticity which i do want to tells testimony was excluded with apple apple circumstantial evidence in the form of exhibits which contained e mails d with drafts of the trust among the parties that demonstrated that it was exactly purports to be there is there is a separate question a for which you correctly pointed out but in terms of authenticity that this was actually a document that was signed by these people and drafted by these people thirds of the recovery to be shared with his live occasion funder and their investigator the district court properly dismissed the case on standing grounds because it found that appellant had not met its burden of proving a lawful assignment  the district court dismissed the case after a recommendation from a magistrate judge who was fully immersed in the matter who held th district court nine discovery hearings issued a discovery orders had trust agreement had to be excluded and was not properly authenticated because of the lack of competent testimony with regard to the signatures right correct amount he there is case law from other circuits i don't think we've addressed the issue but there's case law from other circuits including the th circuit that says that whether or not a signature is authentic goes t content of the document and to wait not to whether the document is what it purports to be for purposes of authenticity under the nine hundred dollars series the case i'm looking at is just one it's called united states versus to recognize that the document at issue for authentication is a is an operational document it's not simply one piece of evidence it is a document that if it mid it purports to be legal freestanding document that transfers claim so in that situation i think it's critically important that the authentication rules be applied rigorously and in this case in this case your honor despite what mr boies said there was no evidence no evidence that mr martinez in particular ever signed this document and without his signature there can be no transfer there were  but this is a document that doesn't have one signature it has multiple signatures and you've got competent to have competent evidence at least for authenticity purposes that some of the signatures were genuine and legitimate why isn't that enough to get you past the authentication hurdle you know you're on to two responses one if the martinez signature is not authentic and genuine there can be no assignment so let me ask you let me ask you this hypothetical it's a very different case and i know it doesn't govern here but let me ask you this hypothetical you've got a case where there is a contest regarding a will and a subsequent will and the contention about the subsequent will is that the person who later became deceased didn't really sign it and there's a genuine dispute about the authenticity of the signature on that nd document in that sort of a scenario doesn't the genuineness of the signature on the nd will become an issue of fact for the trier of fact your  honor it is an issue of fact for the trier of fact and in this case the magistrate judge with review by the district court considered that issue fully after an evidentiary hearing but it's an excellent example that your own is raised because that's precisely why in most states most trusts in the state statutes work choir extra notarization endorse certification for signatures on a will including witnesses precisely for that reason and that's exactly the case here in fact your honor there was not a single witness with personal knowledge of a single signature on this trust agreement not mr muniz not mr martinez not the trustees not a single piece of evidence was introduced on any of those and to be clear your honor the pallies went out of their way to get the evidence on these signatures it's not as if we were trying to slip one by here we asked for the depositions of anyone and everyone who could have any personal knowledge and we got not a single witness who had any personal knowledge that mr martinez signed this document the fact after the fact notarization but what is after the fact i mean after what after the after the trust agreement the trust agreement was signed in the summer of two thousand and seventeen there were no martinez and not for mr munis well this may not get them there but there is that it is then in the record that the trustees that the us trust the signatures were genuine and legitimate right you may not agree with it you m think it's not appropriate you may think it doesn't carry the day but there is some evidence in the record concerning the u s trustees and their signature is there not there is the after the fact or is a sion of those two signatures but their signatures that the court needs to look into the authority of the actors to apply the active state doctrine but your honor i'd like to spend a moment on the champ or the issue because it's a critical issue that really is very straightforward and makes it easy for the court not to have to delve into these seven entry issues the charity finding below was that this transaction was prohibited by the new york champ or the statute for eighty nine which explicitly prohibits the assignment of claims with the intent of purpose and purpose of bringing litigation this not wish to sue directly so it purported to assign those claims to a created for litigation trust that's exactly what happened in just in when the note holders did not want to sue the german banks directly so they assigned their claims to a created for litigation trust and similarly in both cases the trust said no preexisting relationship with pet abase exactly the same is just  champ pretty statute is directed at exactly what happened here which is a situation where lawyers and investigators stir up litigation for which there's no evidence litigation would have been brought otherwise it's classic commercialization of claims and that's why it's barred by just any and and the court can easily affirm on that basis we think that is controlling under justin the trust to which the claims were assigned was a preexisting trust that actually held the rights to the collateral in the notes involved so it was very much a sister entity in this case that cannot be said in fact mr boies in his firm went out of their way in discussing this in their papers to say that the idea was to separate to separate this trust from the government ask you this procedural question if that that champ or the ruling is a merits ruling is it not it merits ruling on chance or to yes right so because we're not allowed to engage in hypothetical jurisdiction we have to either resolve the standing question or the act and state question or the political question doctrine matter before we get to jam pretty right no i don't agree with that your honor because jurisdiction here turns on whether this plaintiffs had a standing yes we have before we get to jam pretty weak to get to charity we have to find that they have standing do we but champ pretty goes to the issue of whether they have standing no it's a it's a sub i think it's a substantive issue under new york law that new york law just doesn't recognize this cause of action and deems it against public policy it doesn't mean you don't have standing it just means you don't have a cause of action and that's that that's to me sounds like marriage as opposed to just disability or your honor i think we see it differently we see in order to have standing the trust has to have an assignment a lawful assignment that was the question for the hearing i agree and if the assignment is legal claim you don't you don't address standing within the real you don't address merits within the rubric of standing you don't say oh you can't prevail because you're never going to be able to show that a law is unconstitutional or that the plane or that the defendant acted torsionally and if you can show that you can show injury and you can have standing that's my opinion that's not the way standing doctrine works the merits  separate from the just disability question am i wrong about that i respectfully disagree with that your honor that this doesn't obviously go to the merits of the claims in this case it goes to the merits of whether be standing in this case depends entirely upon the assign district court ruled on i won't address those unless the court has questions but i will address for a minute the active state doctrine the the active state doctrine only applies to official acts of foreign government officials or foreign governments that take place fully within its borders there's no dispute here that this agreement was not consummated fully within the borders  venezuela and that's when the agreement became effective moreover by making the agreement subject to new york law in new york dispute resolution and all of those things the greenman itself was clearly taken out whalen jurisdiction and subjected to new york laws we think for that reason as well you state state doctrine doesn't apply we already talked about the fact that plaintiffs did not meet their burden at all in showing that this was an official official government add if they were required to do under dunhill and moreover it is relevant to the active state question that both the united states government and the current venezuelan government condemn this trust say it's unconstitutional say it's of no force and effect in the marcos case in the  speak to instances where there was a change of regime and that goes directly to the issue of whether the involvement of the court and looking at this assignment threatens an embarrassment to the u government we think that in this case there is no threat to the u s government by this court looking at this assignment and agreeing with the district court below that the spirits international honour's to address the political question argument the political question arguments really the flip side of the act of state argument the case is counseled the court to look very very carefully at whether actions of the judiciary are impinging on the executive branch and in this case you have an executive branch which has recognized the new government the old government in the the old president has been indicted we have a letter we'll address that next week but we have a letter from the new government condemning this trust arrangement we have a national assembly of venezuela which has condemned this trust the and called it unconstitutional so for this court to permit to reverse and permit this case to go forward is a classic example of putting the courts in an embarrassing situation with the  executive branch in the correct decision here which is what the deuce court th below is to dismiss understanding not involve the courts in this case and i would just note letter along with mr boies shortly you may want to take up the issue of authenticity given all the tapping with the dual venezuelan government right now how are we satisfied that this letter is genuine that it's authentic and how do we know that it purports to speak for president why don't you may want to take up those issues along d with mr boies and your written response thank you very much take your i i'm not surprised that you refused we presented evidence that the u s trustees had actually signed the document that goes to the authenticity of the document we offered a deposition of the people in venezuela either by video or by defendants refused that we wanted those those individuals who were outside of the united states made affidavits or anything else indicating that they had signed the documents liquidating trust and by its terms this is a liquidating trust in addition and this is one of the reasons that i started out where i did on the fact what i know it's not tree if you are assigning this for some purpose some significant purpose other than simply to try to collect it and the purpose of destruction and the evidence and here the reason that you had a trust was not th everybody was concerned that the people who were engaging the crop who would use their political and much to try to get one faction or another to try to kill this litigation the evidence is undisputed that that was are or the trust and entered into engagement that it was going to be the same off firm and the same arrangement the difference is that by putting it in the hands of independent trustees these are people who had the authority to do that the district court did not do that and we believe the evidence the record and the evidence that's available from the statutes