anti terrorism act with the foreign sovereign immunity zakk but the most serious thing that it did and if i have the chance to talk about only one thing here today this is it the court below ignores the nationwide service of process of federal subpoenas that was not always the rule that was something that came into being with the i believe it was two thousand and thirteen if not of his two thousand and fourteen amendments and there's a procedure in the in rule forty five for serving subpoenas nationwide if responding to the subpoena or challenging the subpoena in the jurisdiction where the court is sitting is difficult there's a forty five is called subpoena we served a subpoena not a summons the jurisdiction of the court for serving subpoenas you do you think that rule forty five superseded your decision and gee that's i think that seem to think that the power to serve a subpoena is the same as the power for a court to get personal jurisdiction over someone you know i didn't say that this case is about personal jurisdiction over t banks for serving if there is no personal jurisdiction over them they can't force to respond so i don't see why the ability to send them a document is the same as the creation of personal jurisdiction when you say your honor that that's what the case is about we have to dissect it a little more gingerly because there were two things that were served here there was a federal rule forty five subpoena and there was a illinois state court  illinois state law citation which becomes a federal mechanism to rule sixteen not the analysis isn't necessarily the same for both right now i'm talking about the federal subpoena which seeks production of collection proceeding against any particular party there has to be personal jurisdictional and i'm trying to figure out why there is personal jurisdiction because as far as i know rule forty five is not a means to create personal jurisdiction nor your honor is rule forty five a collection proceeding rule forty five is a mechanism to allow the judgment creditor or any plaintiff or any litigant to obtain information if i get production of documents from the bank in response to the subpoena it doesn't mean i get the money in fact all i might find out is that there's an iranian bank account in england and then i'll have to go to england to commence procedures as your honor to choose to proponent it out i would not then be able to sue an entity in england here i would have to go there but the subpoena is that is for the purpose of gathering information what your honor is talking about is a miscellan supplemental proceeding to enforce the judgment what we would call a turnover proceeding or a citation proceeding which the object is give me the money not tell me if you have money somewhere there are two different things so i don't think that we have to i don't think we have to talk about i don't think it's even relevant whether rule forty five supersedes the g e decision because we're talking about different things and if we were decision but the subpoena looking for information is simply an information gathering mechanism and does not seek to do it and does not require an independent basis of personal jurisdiction as a turnover case as a judgment creditor the plaintiff has the right to serve a subpoena on somebody located in this jurisdiction and ask for information whether it be documents or deposition so you think that if the courts of botswana had rule forty five you could demand that all this information be turned over in botswan if we had a judgment in buts juana wouldn't matter where you had the judgement on your current argument all you are asking is information and if there is an equivalent of rule forty five anywhere in the world any litigant must be prepared to offer that information anywhere in the world where we would have to add to your work scenario you know for example that i wish you would answer the question as all i ask it don't tell me i asked the wrong question no but your honor has an answer the question i receives a for real forty five subpoena under the bucks way me and rule forty five then yes that and to t has to produce whatever information attacks so we do that we deal with this every day in ordinary civil litigation i can serve a subpoena but i go downstairs to the to the northern district and i have a case there and i serve a subpoena on you know bank of new york which may be located in new york but if i serve i can serve the subpoena out of this court and i don't have to prove that my litigation which might be you know up bus accident that might be anything like it might be a bus accident that might be a medical malpractise case it might be any kind of a commercial that might be any kind of case at all pending here but if i believe that the bank of new york in new york has some relevant information i can serve a subpoena on bank of new york pursu subpoena on a company you have to have some good faith reason to believe that that company will have no i never made us enough i don't think that's enough and you can't you can't force companies to spend a lot of time and money provided you with information if you have if you have direct access to the information you're looking for how do i have direct access those you know that these foreign banks and so on don't you that you banks themselves via their u s offices bank of tokyo laundered billions of dollars for a rare they scrub the iran related information off the wire god only knows how much money from my victims my clients who are victims of terrorist attacks my clients are not the bank of tokyo my clients are a family whose child was murdered at random by a terrorist they are not made of money there's even matter to you that this there's a tokyo branch connected with this american branch you think you can ask anybody for anything that might be helpful i think that if you are present in the jurisdiction i am entitled to serve a subpoena and ask for information that you have and if you are a company that touts itself by saying you know come bring us your business we have a worldwide presence will leverage that we can do business the sun never sets on us we can do business all over the world except when somebody serves a subpoena and says hey you guys laundered billions of dollars for a rare iran killed our child we want to know what you know about a radian assets then they say oh we can't possibly say there's not a threat to brands why don't you ask the headquarters if we had a judgment where the headquarters was we might but we have a judgment here under an american law there's an international convention on the recognition judgments right which which shot at the hague convention is not something that japan is part of it is a extremely ar us process that i'm almost always results in nothing they want me to take my judgment go to japan domesticated in japan as a japanese judgment if the japanese court will recognize it and i am aware of absolutely zero instances where a japanese court has recognized the judgment issued by the united states under the foreign sovereign immunity sec and we have to remember that the foreign sovereign immunity sachs state sponsored terrorism exception is controversial around wh do you expect them to provide the information you want to their chicago brand because they took because they do business here they have the benefit i think they don't cooperate they have taken the benefit they say don't cooperate later you say they don't cooperate the japanese that's correct what good is it going to do well i think if they have the subpoena enforcement power of the united states district court and be asked for a deposition  thirty six witness who knows about arabian assets and if he comes in and he's not informed the court has remedies in the local bank say they don't have the already the least said they don't have and any of that those assets they say in their that a few months ago like airplanes that are we send billions of dollars to iran yes did you ever try to get ahold of any of that judge that is something that we looked into tremendously and i well that's all i need to know but deliberately set up so that the money was being transferred from someplace offs or it didn't come from the united states and they sent it i think from switzerland to another currency and in foreign currencies so this bank of tokyo the death of my client and i thought it was a foreign sovereign immunity to terrorism terrorist victim judgment one person was killed and the survivors and the family  each got awards there was also a punitive damages amount that this if will you can write the number that you're referring to is is that compensatory awards and that was already before this court as to which people were entitled to recover there was an issue of whether non citizens non citizen family members of dissidents could recover the bank of i can't get away from this point the bank of tokyo b while they say that all we are overseas and it's not fair to call us into court here that did not stop them from carrying out these wire transfers shamelessly all this cry of burden from them it's crocodile tears they shamelessly came into america when it suited their purposes they knew how to send wire transfers use our fed wire system use the swift system transfer billions of dollars with the a dent information deliberately scrubbed off of it and now when we ask so for that they're able to come here make use of our infrastructure but when we ask for something reciprocal such as ok now that you got caught now that you paid billions of dollars in fines now that you pleaded guilty tell us what you know about the assets of iran and then they say oh we're overseas we couldn't possibly tell an american court any of this and it's not fair to bring us into court and we only have to tell you essentially the non information what's in our in our chicago branch which is you know philip sure they're happy to answer that question but before they agree to answer that question they know that the answer is useless the useful information is hidden someplace else in there in their operation which spans many countries i don't know that the information is in japan it could be that if we went to japan judge posner they would tell us oh that information's not in japan it might be in botswana try our butts want to branch so my clients who are victims might if we follow their approach we could be in litigation in forty five countries where these banks have branches looking for assets which move and won't be there by the time we find out about them so much good food two hundred twelve stand that's the question what good all of the world you never catch up with but i don't think i have to because if they move the money around in order to avoid a creditor then i may be able to commence a separate kind of claim under a  fraudulent conveyance theory i don't know where it will play out but right now we're just trying to find out the information if i find out they had the a can't imagine this imagine they say we had an account that was at our london branch we might have a claim against that other bank one way or another we will be further along on the trail of trying to get these assets were they put all their money review in their pockets became a cash on an airplane if the if the rule forty five analysis assent but what the court below did was essential to apply diner to rule forty five subpoenas and that is extremely flawed it can't possibly be what the supreme court intended styler and the amendments were all forty five came out almost simultaneously within a year of each other lawyers the government litigants every day to issue subpoenas in federal cases nationwide basis i serve dozens of them a month if i want to subpoena somebody in california for a case that's pending in new york i serve the subpoena the analysis is not whether the court in new york has personal jurisdiction over the nonparty subpoena recipient in california that's just not what rule forty five requires the subpoena to serve in california i suppose the the vent is that their release valve that's designed to rule forty five is that if the subpoena recipient in california finds it burdensome to come to new york to challenge the subpoena they can they have a way to add to challenge it in california that's what was designed of through forty five but to say that just that a rule forty five subpoena requires independent basis of jurisdiction over the nonparty subpoena recipient one other thing must must be mentioned just because i think it's outrageous is the court below you're part of the analysis is the interest of the united states and having its judgments in force and the court said look only one plaintiff was an american citizen the rest were so they discounted the suffering of my clients based on who is a citizen despite the fact that the law as written and as this court ruled in the previous appeal in leibovich case gives non citizen family members of citizens the same rights to make a claim and people are no less people because you know my wife is a citizen and i'm not to take that into account and say well that discounts the interests of the united states and having its terrorism judgments in force it's it really if it was really just an the district court was correct in finding that there was no jurisdiction to require the banks here to conduct the extraordinary world wide search for assets and worldwide restraints that the plaintiffs demanded plaintiffs have drop their argument that they made below that general jurisdiction exists to do this and that of course is correct given the ruling in dime lawyer and so they train their arguments on specific jurisdiction the district court was correct looked to the contacts between the banks and the forum and he considered both illinois as the form and united states and found in both cases so the argument about whether we look to illinois and the united states is a bit academic here given that neither side neither analysis or the plane just fall short of satisfying the minimum contacts requirement then you need to say to the contacts arise from or relate to the plains of the seeking well what would you suggest they do if you're right about that that they're not entirely for what should they have done with what they should do is they could get the information from the local branches and that's a star and they can see what's in the united states and then they have their judgment they should have their judgment recognized in other jurisdictions or they can proceed to letters or over tory and the hague convention as to my client and try to learn about accounts that are located in the sixty two million that's the judges sixty two million yes because at the end of the day these plaintiffs cannot one shop stop in this important proceeding there's under the f s a they are limited to assets of iran in the united states so even if they found out about an iranian asset in some other jurisdiction that they could get they would have to go to that jurisdiction in any event to seize the asset so they're actually creating a burden from their selves by trying to star in the united states find out about assets somewhere else where there's no jurisdiction to do that and then go there to actually get the asset because they're not able to do that in the united states and that's a factor that's relevant to the fair play in substantial justice as well as the comedy if we think about administrative efficiency for  court and for the parties frankly having this sort of opening act in the united states when at the end of the day they need to go elsewhere is a huge point that supports what the district court it below and then looking at the at the  analysis of specific jurisdiction just to finish that out there obviously no illinois contacts between these banks and iranian assets and the only thing plaintive of place pointed to when it falls back to the u contacts and just one point about that we do not concede that the us contact analysis is the right analysis rule they first of all proceeded by way of the illinois citation process that state court procedure that's the procedure they're going to actually get the assets the rule forty five subpoena is kind of a tag along it's an ancillary document that just repeats exactly what's in the illinois papers that they served on our chicago branches but putting that aside rule forty five does not create jurisdiction and so the question is yes they may have served it which they served out of the district court of illinois but there's no basis for them saying they could look to united states contacts and analyzing the specific jurisdiction question but be that as a may if you looked at the new york conduct so the fact that certain e f t s went through the new york branches and the conduct in the context of that  conduct that the banks have entered into civil settlements as to and pled guilty to in the case of my client that conduct is the definition of for to a this in terms of what they're going after in terms of bank of tokyo my client paid civil fines to the government in connection with this conduct that's the tune of approximately a billion dollars the u s government has now said that it is now in the in to do a billion yes that that is now in a fund in washington that the government is it is available for the victims of terrorism so going they can get at that money here i'm not there issuing regulations but the money is here and it is here for terror victims and so the question is who has a claim to it i'm not sure if that's been worked out but i would assume his clients would meet some of the requirements or at least a u s citizen among is a plaintive so in terms of his plaintiffs in the claims they were non citizens except for one  so in the context of collecting against a foreign state as we've been discussing they will have to go to another forum otherwise usually the way to recover is on an intergovernmental settlement basis or the kind of fun citizens couldn't get anything from this eight billion in washington i'm assuming no but i would need to i'm not sure if that's been decided or the regs have been issued so i can answer that and it will your honor and then the final piece which is whether the assertion of the jurisdiction over these banks will comport with fair play and substantial justice the district court was clearly right and didn't abuse its discretion and weighing the factors relevant that analysis he took into account the burden that these banks face answer in terms of potential civil and criminal liability in japan for the bank of tokyo and in europe and france for my client under the bank secrecy laws he considered the diminished interest of this forum it was no slight to plaintiffs but it was relevant to the analysis that none of these plaintiffs live and illinois and i don't know if any of them even live in the united states and so again we have this idea of this almost an ancillary action being brought multiple forms to collect on their judgment and the fact that what he's demanding requirement would require the collection of documents the production of witnesses from everywhere but not here what was the sixty two million dollar that had ties to iran around and there was a child who was killed tragically another child was wounded and i think other people were wounded as well or at least had the suffering that goes along with where do they agree that the stroke it was a default judgment issued i information encourages and goes on such terrorist activity by these these types of organizations in israel this is a default judgment they didn't appear and you know very correct they didn't appear but i assume that the in keeping with the requirements of the foreign sovereign immunity sack the the district court had to have a form of an inquest to make findings and then issued a default judgment from there of course my client and mr b a piano's clients the banks were not involved in any of that we're and so we're only brought in upon the service of the subpoenas and it's very telling i mean this mr r tolkien said repeatedly he doesn't know anything is so again we're dealing with speculation and it just briefly if you're honest don't have any for  question but your stiction there is an alternative basis for upholding if there is any doubt about the jurisdictional analysis which i think is sound we have the comedy analysis that the court did where in his discretion he gave comedy  and said that the plaintiff should go through the hague convention for my clients are going avail themselves of the procedures in tokyo and japan for having their judgment recognized and force there that's a sixty two million exactly but my understanding is that the judgment still remains and satisfied and so the plaintiffs have turned to to the banks but in terms of the comedy analysis this court's decision and united states versus first bank of chicago makes it clear that if the district court did not do a comedy analysis given the potential criminal and civil liability facing our clients that would have been reversible error so he did what is the rule in the seventh circuit when you face  potential for liability he weighed the relevant comedy factors and he found that they weighed in favor of the hey convention we're going to japan there's no argument that he applied the wrong standard and to the extent there's there's an attempt to say well he waited long there's there's no argument that's correct that would say that the way he did fell outside the bounds of reason that we associate with the abuse of discretion standard yes he recognized in terms of  looking at the first factor that these documents are a potential importance to plaintive but of course that's based on the speculation that there is information that's going to lead him to and forcible assets but the court gave him that but then i'm looking at the other factors relevant he noted that these demands are very broad in scope and if they were required my clients would cross seventy five jurisdictions where they have branches required the bank of tokyo mitsubishi will cross forty jurisdictions where they have branches so incredibly broad burdensome we're talking by definition about foreign source documents given the lack of assets that appear to be in the united states you have the alternative means at hand the hague convention which the united states signed the hague convention it is part of the law of this land as did france so i don't think it's correct for the plane to just dismiss that as some ilian thing being pressed upon him and then he's got the tokyo judgment foresman proceedings that he could  and that was ultimately discovered through legislation by congress i believe or something i'm not sure lecture the facts but yes that's another layer to this which you could imagine would lead plaintiffs to even  broaden his discovery demands of you the banks but again it's very much speculation on his part and then and then finally you have the banks subject to these laws and you have one challenge below the fact that in the united states in illinois there's no centralized database this information is not accessible in the united states there's no press a button and see you know where everything is in the bank that's just not how it works and that makes because there is no need for the bank to do that and of course bring that information into the united states would self be a violation of the data privacy laws and the bank secrecy laws so the court weighed the comedy factors balanced them out did what he was supposed to do it's a very thorough decision and so the comedy analysis stands as another reason why the district court should be affirmed in all respects i don't know if your honour's have track we serve a citation we served a rule forty five subpoena one might be enforceable one might not but mr poe could suit told the court that this is a citation proceeding with a tag along subpoena no it's not true it's december of two thousand and fifteen congress passed a law a little noticed except among people who handle foreign sovereign immunity terrorism claims a funded was created called the united states victims of state sponsored terrorism fund one billion dollars was allocated to that fund to be precise it was one billion fifty million dollars not the whole eight billion and a mechanism was set up with a special master kind of feinberg was a d as a special master to collect claims analyze them see what enforceable what's not what meets the requirements what doesn't and then to distribute that one billion dollars to the claimants something in the order of two thousand claims were submitted the aggregate of the claims as eleven billion dollars and change and there are certain limits and caps and set please define bird was the administrator of the nine eleven fund also this does not include nine eleven but it includes people who have judgments against a state sponsor of terrorism under the f s a and it also includes people who were held hostage in iran during the carter administration those people never got any kind of compensation so right now to literally last week the fund announced the allocations of money people who submitted qualifying judgments will receive thirteen point six percent of their compensatory awards the fund has a life span of ten years but has not spent all the money that's been allocated to it a big question mark whether any additional money will be allocated obviously a lot of people believe that if one billion dollars from the fine paid by the defendants or th the subpoena recipients here was allocated to the fund then some more of that money should also be allocated to the fund is your client have a claim and then my clients have a claim in that yes but like i said it only gets them so far thirteen point six percent of their judgment the vast majority of the judgment remaining on pay you need thirteen point six percent and sixty two million yes well i have to qualify that too it's one of the caps is that no in distributing the money no family can receive more than thirty million dollars and no individual can receive more than twenty million dollars so with the distribution that's going on right now nobody is coming close to that cap but