was asking is cases we've decided that are like that are the side issues like the issues you're raising where our core another court has said that we're allowed to look beyond sort of maybe the core language of the plan and have some flexibility in how it's applied so it might apply to your to your clients to allow your clients to have claims that maybe at st blush don't totally square with the terms of the bankruptcy plan authority what was the authority of those parties to negotiate assuming we agree with you that it was a final agreement which that's debatable but assuming it was what was the authority based upon the you're relying more on their good faith or what the agreement you thought was agreed to as opposed to whether they actually had a forty to do this under the  parties involved a lot of interests that have to be honored and they those agreements typically set very firm rules about what can be decided negotiation negotiate outside of the core rules set forward from the plan so the judgment of the district court big for the simple and dispositive reason that the plan prohibits the proposed use of these funds the plane prohibits the type of agreement that mr kim seeks to enforce on behalf  involved in the mediation and were not informed of it at all so we have no real understanding i can only tell you what we see in the record which are these mediation statements where it looks like the part that they got together to talk about the mechanics of using affirmative statements to prove proof of manufacture under the plan there had been a dispute about that mr kim had filed a motion in the district court seeking to reverse decisions of the claims facility about those affirmative statements in the processing of his claims that the plan proponents never had notice of this or any knowledge of it until after the fact  six fundamental points involved in the mediation i'm sorry who is involved in the mediation from from the space john the documents that we've received in this in this dispute mr kim was or is it was involved for the korean claimants and so you out of that stance had obviously an important point here played i would submit that it was very it was completely acceptable for them for those groups to get together to talk about the mechanics of proof of manufacture submissions there had been a long back and forth discussion between the claims of minister the former claims administrator and mr kim about how all of those documents were to be submitted that there was no one that was perfectly fine for them to talk about what should be in a deferment of statement what should not be in  affirmative statement somehow during the course of this process this evolved into some other kind of discussion i would suggest your honor that it is not reasonable for mr kim or korean claimants to assume they at these people did in fact have that kind of authority to obligate funds out of a plan of reorganization where there are specific will specific guidelines dictating how the assets of the plan are to be distributed to the creditors and mr kim excuse me very well aware of those rules because he was proceeding to submit his claims under those rules in addition the plan is abundantly clear the only person the only entity that has the right to obligate funds or to approve the distribution of funds from the plan assets is the district court the the play and explains the role of the finance committee they have an administrative function to manage the finances and that is that they have no other authority the special masters in addition special ministers everybody who practices law in the federal courts understand special ministers are appointed there pointed for its defined specific purposes that does not mean that they all of a sudden have authority that it is equal to that of a district court or in this case maybe it's not if it was you know with parties that probably don't ordinarily appear in our federal courts and parties that are situated halfway around the world that is familiar with u s bankruptcy law that may be true mr kim has been is licensed to practice law in the united states and has been litigating this case since one thousand nine hundred and ninety eight as far as i can tell from he was involved in the bankruptcy case he appeared in front of the bankruptcy court he's appeared consistently in front of the district court in this case he is practicing law he's very he is supposed to be familiar with the rules so i understand that the korean individuals perhaps might not be in from one million with the rules but believe that there are six fundamental points that are assets are to be distributed in this case we're talking about the settlement program for breast implant claimants this plan has dozens of pages of guidelines about how funds are to be provided to those claim what they have to do what they have to submit what kinds of criteria are necessary in order to allow a claim to be paid so there's a specific set of guidelines in the plant itself says those guidelines are the exclusive means by which funds may be provided under the settlement program for settling claimants there is no discretion granted to the claims administrator or the finance committee or anyone else to vary these requirements to deviate from them  at the meeting because i wasn't there but it's the the participants in the meeting failed to examine the plan before they made these statements about whether this kind of process could work they came to realize after the fact that it was not feasible under the plan i think in the heat of the meeting they thought maybe this was a reasonable resolution but if they're examining the documents they realized it could not be a plus i don't understand you couldn't possibly think that  to have page memorandum of understanding that was full of blanks and had to be signed could could modify this multi one hundred page plan of reorganization and provide a different kind of distribution so the relief sought by the korean claimants is not provided for in the plan there is no ability to provide some kind of a lump sum payment without examining the claims without assuring that the claims meet the weekly eligibility requirements to allow such a payment is tantamount to modifying the plan basically it would be a change in the plan and as we all know plan cannot be amended the plan itself provides that it can't be amended but more importantly the bankruptcy code prohibits amendments this plan has been went into effect in two thousand  of a plan so the plan basically precludes this outcome he says mr kim is really focused on the fact that there was this meeting and there was this document that was created out of the meeting and that because he signed it it's now a binding agreement so it again i want to focus back on that and the plan itself and just emphasize the reasons for these criteria that we have in the plan for distributing the assets these criteria are critically important they they are they are objective qualification criteria they assure the equivalent treatment of similar of claimants in the same plan class and again as the bankruptcy code requires individuals in the same plan class must receive equal treatment so by having the subjective criteria and mandating that all claims go through these procedures and satisfy these criteria we're sure this equal treatment they allow claimants to evaluate their options they have a function to allow individuals to determine where they fit in the plan settlement structure they protect the fund they protect the fund against fraudulent claims and on qualified claims this is a limited fine there's a cap on the amount that can be spent for these claims unauthorized claims pull money out of that fund you simply reduce the funds available for other claimants and then you potentially require the debtor to pay an amount in excess of the debtor would ordinarily be required to pay so this these protect the debtor for from paying for unqualified claims so what the korean claimants are seeking here is they seek to circumvent these planned requirements and that simply can't be done the plan is mandatory the plan is not cannot be amended this distribution not permitted there's a new there's there are there's a long discussion in all the briefs about settlement agreements and who can make a settlement agreement i want to respond to one point mr kim made he says a mediation is equivalent to a court proceeding there is a case that he's relied on it's the leak case in new york that case does not support his position in that case the parties to the mediation agreed in advance that they had they agreed and the court rest on this point they had agreed that there in fact was an agreement that is not the case here this issue is in dispute so my time is up if you let you have any questions that  rex manning on behalf of the finance committee the most important aspect of this case is its nature this is a bankruptcy proceeding and that means that the questions that you must ultimately answer are bankruptcy questions and keeping that in mind to propose the most efficient way to resolve the appeal one that will not require you to go outside of bankruptcy law and one that involves recasting the questions of the parties have raised as a single bankruptcy question does and twenty seven allow for the type of relief the claimant seek put differently could the district court have even granted them what they're asking for and to get to that answer you can use a simple  we can't grant that type of relief so you're saying there's no relief right given how one thousand one hundred and twenty seven applies to the facts of this case bankruptcy law alone resolved the appeal he don't need to get into other areas of law like agency or contract law which are certainly helpful in kind of conceptualizing the facts and what happened here but when you get down to the nitty gritty of applying it presents a couple of problems instead you can stay soley within bankruptcy law and specifically  the inverse of that being if you're not a real denies debtor or if you are not a plan proponent you may not modify the plan and here neither the finance committee nor the cream claimants fit into either one of those categories as a plan proponent or as the reorganized better and so that means that they can agree to modify the plan but you know why they had this maybe yes your honor so as the record reflects that it started as a discussion about what was actually the most recent appeal here in the six circuit which was an administrative hold that the settlement facility had placed on processing all of the korean claimants claims because of suspected fraud and that deals specifically with the proof of manufacture i think the court kind of covered in the most recent opinion but there  some evidence that there was wiped out on some of the things that were submitted to the settlement facility and so the meeting in washington d c the purpose of it the way it began was to discuss if there is a way to lift the administrative hold or to iron out the proof of manufacture with affirmative statements instead of medical records at some point it shifted the record doesn't reflect exactly when the conversation shifted but it's important keep in mind the parties went into the mediation ready to discuss the topic of administrative hold and the affirmative statements not potentially resolving all the claims in one fell swoop be a lump sum payment and a group settlement as your clients that were at the meeting yes so and  technically a former client so mr austin at the time had already resigned his position position as claims administrator but was still involved in some of the e mails in the record suggests that he was the one predominantly communicating with counsel for green claimants as a meeting can start with here but there is there is some appeal to his case of that sense absolutely of actually there are certainly some somehow scratching things that occurred and you're going to tell your clients absolutely admittedly but i think that kind of goes to the concept of a parent authority and the important thing to keep in mind we're talking about a parent already and we can get into some of the troubling issues of trying to apply that concept to a bankruptcy proceeding but the important thing to keep in mind there is that there's really kind of two parts of the  test st was their actual knowledge of a lack of authority and the nd was it reasonable to believe and the district court made what i would submit were factual findings saying that given counsel for korean claimants long history and involved in the case even though he might have been meeting with claims administrator a former claims administrator and the special master he should have known that the plan just doesn't prevent doesn't allow this type of settlement and so i see that my time is up if there are any other questions from the panel i'm happy to answer them  otherwise i just want to say a quick personal thank you this is my st argument as an attorney so it means a lot to be in from you today thank you