the question before the court is whether the district court had contempt jurisdiction over a moldovan bank that used its new york correspondent account to put on subject to its freeze order beyond the reach of the court violate a district court's order freezing receivership assets or put those assets beyond the reach of the court and then show up in court and say and judge by the way there's nothing you can do about that that's the essence of the of the question court just by way of factual background the zeke rewards ponzi scheme lasted just nineteen months but created over eight hundred thousand victims losing over eight hundred million dollars  over one hundred fifty countries around the world late in twenty twelve late spring of two thousand and twelve the u s banks were figuring out that rex venture groupers the rewards was not a business that they wanted to get anywhere near and they were having trouble finding ways to receive money from the victims of the rewards so one of the alternatives they had to traditional banking was that they used were called wallets which they're like pay pal but people open an account  the affiliates are victims of it they would they would charge their credit cards to the pays in this case when the wallets and create an account from which they could buy from zeke rewards pays in turn used a credit card processor to process those credit cards now pays itself was a bit of a troubled merchant and couldn't get a credit card processor that handled more legitimate if you will say kind of merchants so payment world us had a relationship with a company called payment world on kong which was owned by a russian national name viktor corcoran and payment world hong kong had an agreement with payment world u s that they would find overseas banks or merchants that would not be touched or handled by u s domestic banks some merchants in the u s w mr block a sworn deposition testimony mr latan of what eventually became payment or almost moldova claimed that he was a majority or significant shareholder in victoria bank  and that he would arrange for victoria bank to take on these duties on behalf of pays off if there but there must be an entity in which he had an interest seems to me you need to cut to the chase of your argument all this more than just walking like your idea but the essence of the argument is that first of all the district court limited our discovery and the reason i was going through that history is show what we do know because i think by a prime facia standard for jurisdiction which is what the court district  difficult and incorrect to force you to beat upon so the evidence and court should either give you a more realistic standard from a face you know whatever he or she might say with limited discovery i'll give you more discovery if it wants to evidence that's right that's exactly the argument especially since you know in the dish court below we we did argue to the district court that there was a lot of discovery here that we wanted to  banks what they did ownership interests and i'll just see if there's a basis they have jurisdiction over them as as an initial point yes we first need that that discovery to carry a preponderance burden of jurisdiction i bank of new york mellon or your thinking discovery over any other foreign entities other than victoria bank for example he did be in hong kong he did it would be our firm and hope to do so and a very low expectation of accomplishing what was what was arguing that this record doesn't have any jurisdiction over no matter what no matter that we use the correspondent bank in new york no matter that we run tens of millions of dollars to that account you can't touch us now this court may decide that is the law but i hope it doesn't and so what we would like to be right in that argument but you think they're wrong and you just think when you play with the standard that you have to show and the amount of discovery you're allowed that has to give you a fair chance to make the argument whatever the court makes of you they have to allow you to have access to information to be able to have a fair chance to meet that that's exactly what you're and we understand that eventually we'll have to carry the burden think if you got discovery on victoria bank that that would that would suffice to give you the information you need if you have an argument to be made to meet that panos of the evidence then do it at all y i know you said you won't need more other people but do you think if you get discovery against victoria bank that will be sufficient i don't know that it will because i won't tell this court that's all i'm going to try to get that i don't need to fish it carry the exhausted the book but that's where my highest hope is i mean frankly your honor i don't know that there is a payment world hong kong to get discovery from i don't know that there's a payment world russian federation where this money actually wound up if there's anything there to have discovery i would hope to get some discovery from the moldova and central bank that's the right term from it so that perhaps verify some what we're being told by  by but really the essence of that will come from victoria bank because things we would like to know is in twenty twelve not not today because victoria banks either think that we even get into the question we would solve the no then what will you do you have that that is somehow can continue your argument that you didn't make any difference now i'm saying it made no difference whether we tried to domesticate the order was that the victoria bank can be in contempt of the court's order without it being domestic if it expose itself the jurisdiction here in the ice ace which it did as we are going in court as that's our argument if it did that it's subject to contempt and not complying with th whether or not we domesticated it in moldova and then as a practical matter we could not have we sent a letter to them because it was only by then we knew in september eleventh of two thousand and twelve that they had met was received by september notice they could still have the responsible for violate correct correct and as a practical matter domesticating it would have made a difference it could not have happened in the eight days between our letter and the money being gone know if that's the requirement that you never wanted to be here with there having been a domesticated order that they violated no your honor would it make any difference to me it is however long it took us to domesticate that order and i don't know how long it would take them but more than eight days if we walked in here and said your honor we had a domesticated order that is no good to us because it was domesticated three months after the money was gone so i can't point to the domestication that orders given us a leg up at all with that that was in my question i said wouldn't you rather stay who with a domesticated order that they had died and that's what i was and find as would be yes i think if i were to guess i wish that i had a domesticated order right and that they violated by sending the violently and the answer has to be yes sure but it couldn't after not so but you want to respond by saying i wish i had that it would strengthen my case but in this your argument is in this case that wasn't even a possibility because of course going for would be for this court to suggest to the district court that the jurisdictional facts and the merit facts are so intertwined the full discovery should be allowed to go forward and the district court consider whether it has jurisdiction after full discovery and whether victoria that and but the court can decide that do you think that if we if we want into that kind of discovery for you to get at least your station was covered whatever that is that then the proponents of the evidence would be the  honor and may please the court i'm hearing here appearing specially on behalf of victoria bank the i am not the tory bank in victoria bank is not in this courtroom but it is represented by a lawyer noted thank you your on the receiver argues fundamentally that if a foreign bank with no presence in the united states except for a correspondent bank account of the bank payment world moldova there were multiple occasions on which the client payment world moldova directed victoria bank to pay somebody and that payment was routed through the correspondent bank account in new york at bank of new york which is the way correspondent banking account works every single time and which the court the district court specifically found as a fact was the way correspondent banking account works every single time that is the funds the transfer of funds is always directed by the owner of those funds in this case payment world moldova now we'll get into burdens and standards and so on but that is a fact that the district court found which can only be upset under the clearly erroneous standard and it's not clearly erroneous and there's certainly been no showing that well and my view is if there's a correspondent bank involved i guarantee it will be well that's probably true too because they're a little onerous sometimes in the in the things that they say they seem to be very wise that they can add a way to do banking and claim they don't know and have nothing to do well that is that may be that may be the case but that may be a different case than this case as well up what's what again what the receiver is arguing is if if a foreign bank whose only connection to the united states is that it has a correspondent bank which is used in the course of international commerce some of which i mean in this case the funds went from moldova to the two star bank in russia it had nothing to do with the united states other than it was a dollar denominated transaction therefore it went through b what he's saying is that any injunction that is issued by a united states district court is in forcible through contempt power against that foreign bank and that is so regardless of the laws in which the foreign bank operates that is the country in which it operates regardless of whether its own laws would permit some interference with that transaction and regardless of whether the party procuring the injunction in this case mr bell the receiver had domesticated that injunction in the foreign country in which the bank operates and through the courts of that foreign country to whose jurisdiction it is case twenty two you start with the sex and the district court provided the receiver with ample opportunity to develop jurisdictional back and the only limitation was that it had to core in the united states well this is alleged international conflicts so how could limiting it to the united states that is discovered in united states be a reasonable course of action on the part of it is a court that's that's me let me give you the context and i will if i will answer the question the level of review we're talking about here is the discretion of the district court to control discovery in its court and again the standard that has to be met by the receiver in order to upset what the district court did was the district court abused its discretion by limiting the discovery in this fashion the dischord did not abuse its discretion by limiting the discovery in this fashion limitation was the united front and that's that's using the the federal civil rules of procedure limited to the united states that does not mean for example that the district court would not have entertained a request from the receiver that letters rogue atory be sent to moldova mr bell says i want to take some some discovery from the moldova national bank well he's going to probably need to use letters rogue atory to do that mean you're saying it's much sure that he meant it in those terms he's talking about things that are readily procurable by me district court or in forcible by me district court sitting in charlotte north carolina you know with respect to information that is of vailable through process sees that i control and this came in a context in which he invited it and that and the receiver were actually having a colloquy if you look back at the full page of of six seventy eight or maybe a page earlier than that about mr bell saying well i'd like to do discovery of victoria bank and the judge essentially saying well they're going to just tell me that i can't order them to do discovery because they're not within the ambit and the power of this court so what do you want me to do and judge and mr bell says well i thought i'd already persuaded you that you that they were within the power of the district court in the district judge says well you haven't quite yet what do you want me to do and he says i will allow you to take discovery in the united states start with the payment world guy mr along co and this is where we come to the the propriety of the limitation that the district court made with respect to the your honor they haven't asked for it but perhaps that i didn't say they did i said you would agree to it it depends on what they asked for the manner in which they asked for it and all a lot of different factory know well that the answer is not no no you say they don't know they got to do letters or a good toy and other ways to get there so i just thought the natural question is if they do that then you have no objection but you go oh yeah but i probably did well it depends on what they asked for because the district court was very focused on i do not want this to be a fishing expedition and what is the definition of a fishing expedition something that's a very broad and of marginal perhaps relevant no i don't think it's where they  the court using this authority to order discovery as to victoria bank you just want to work out the details of it is that correct i think but in the main is correct but again it all depends on what is asked a forum in which  question and their questioning is as i understand it you don't object to discovery as a matter in this case on jurisdictional facts we deserving the right to object to certain things that they want to discover and you have those rights then we give you an aside remember a little while ago when there was a question i asked what do you won't and the other side said i won't the same kind of is all  who started this proceeding with making no mention whatsoever about victoria banks alleged involvement with payment world or any of the various payment world entities that mr bell is very careful to say there are three of them he doesn't really think there are three of them he thinks there's one of them and they're all mashed together why so why he now wants to take discovery to see what it is with an object if you can raise in allow toria bank is somehow in the ownership structure the judge says don't take his deposition in fact not mr bell said i'm already scheduled to take his deposition that's again on the same page that that you that you're on a referring to and it turns out that in fact he doesn't know has no personal knowledge what so ever about any of these alleged jurisdiction facts that show some kind of a co ownership and he certainly doesn't know any kind of fact that would suggest well then why don't you use all that to oppose in these sit big type of discovery maybe they'll be some discovery that they want to get that you won't object to which i don't know if that's possible but if you object to that on this basis why isn't that plea that because again you're on what we're what we're what we're drilling down here is what is the scope of the discretion that the district court has in this case given what he was asked to do in this case and given the information that he was supplied in this case the receiver says when i take along those deposition i will be able to substantiate all of these allegations that i have made based on what he's told me district court says fine go do it they do it they are not able to substantiate any of those allegations because the one coach doesn't know you've already told us that well the law code doesn't know therefore it's hearsay therefore does that mean that the district court can't ever use it not necessarily the district court could use it but the district court understands that but long co is somebody that the receiver does not believe the the receiver thinks is a liar i don't because i do not understand why you make this argument you just make this argument that there should be no further discovery what purpose of this argument i hear is interesting but i don't understand what the purpose of the argument is to show this panel which is reviewing the district court for the question that and all the to be done in this case has been yes no reasonable way there's no reason there's no reason to do more is to show this panel but the district court appropriately exercised its discretion to control the discovery process that it was willing to issues and that's exactly what the receiver got in this case because the first seaver said the address addiction issues are posed by mr belong co and the or that my view of the receivers view of the of the jurisdictional side of the equation is posed by mr belong go take the deposition of mr blanco mr blanco in fact does not is not able to substantiate any of the  whatever to use raise the here's the issue i don't understand that well i mean there's no evidence because the quote evidence is hearsay of which he has no personal knowledge so therefore there is no evidence that somebody told him something that implicate oh yes he did which is the first person giving you the best spin on it and code doesn't know anything so then that's the end when you go to the next person in terms of a fair discovery as you well if they want to take the this well i don't know that they would submit themselves to the jurisdiction of the court that they don't think they have juror that doesn't they don't think has jurisdiction in order to provide depositions now there's lots of other ways that the receiver can figure out who the owners of victoria bank are if you really wants to for example one of the principal shareholders of victoria bank that we all know a lot of is the european bank for  reconstruction and development one of the principal owners of the european bank for reconstruction and development is the united states of america and the secretary of treasury sits on the board of the european bank for consider the admissibility of evidence when it looks like you say if in fact it is over they can show provision at least it appears issue a liable yes the other person is not available yes you can but it has to appear to be reliable jurisdictional standard which by this point was the preponderance of the evidence what we're arguing about what the receiver is really arguing about is i didn't get a fair shot at meeting the preponderance of the evidence standard and the reason he didn't get a fair shot at meeting the preponderance of the evidence standard is because the sole basis of his evidence is  no no testimony in court rooms in this country but but your honor again we have to we have to come back to the standard that you must apply to the district court's decisions here that district court's standards appropriately that is an abuse of school i don't disagree with that at all your honor but what i'm saying is that when you look at what he was faced with it no you just make an argument that he did it abused his discretion because he made no he's his principal witness blanco he believes he's a liar how does that mean that their position is wrong or somehow cabin you know i don't understand again he believes blanco is a liar i think he can make  it i think it goes to the issue of should the district court take into consideration evidence which everybody understands and acknowledges is  it when you when you get a bill and when you when you look at the full spectrum of the of the of the record in front of you p w moldova moved that money eight days or whatever they whatever whatever the time period is but p w moldova didn't just go out of existence at that point it moved ten million dollars or more worth of money over the succeeding year at any point during that year if the disk if they were had done what he should have done in the very beginning which is dumb ass to cait this order and make it effective against viktoria bank in moldova then we would be in a very different setting and a very different situation as judge pointed out with his questions earlier but the perceiver never did that so really the case that's most appropriate and on point in this proceeding is the reebok case which judge mullen which the district court relied on as very heavily which is sad essentially the power therefore jurisdiction in that sense of the district court in an injunction give proceeding extends as far as the territorial jurisdiction of the united states not just the the particular court we're not there where we are is beyond the territorial jurisdiction of the united states and what the reebok court says is you cannot regardless of any of these other issues you cannot make effective an order of the district court against a foreign actor unless that order is made effective against the foreign act or through the courts of that that govern and hold jurisdiction over that foreign actor and this is on forty nine third thirteen ninety three when it goes through a very extended analysis of the underlying facts which included for example just what it is this bank if you do because what reebok says is you can't make that order effective beyond where you are where that bank is and all that bank into your court district court and hold them in contempt if for example abating your order would put them at risk of disobeying the law of their forum which is exactly what we have here and again that is a fact which the district court found which is not clearly erroneous in fact it's not correct to me that you have a bank this headquarters somewhere else and they do tons of business in the us through various kind of people and agencies and other things that you know what would happen if somebody wanted to sue them would serve one of their agents or somebody they claim to be an agent doing and a business transaction involving a person who so want to move this country and then we would have a discussion about whether or case i said i think on minimal contact you could have minimal contact which could give you jurisdiction over about potentially then could not require a domesticated order in their country you told me i was incorrect well that is exactly the situation in reebok and what the court to me it was exactly the situation and reebok that may be limited to its facts because when i proposed another way you said well there's different at forty nine f third thirteen ninety three the court goes through of an analysis it ends with in fine we do not agree that when a national of a foreign country allows the the law of that country follows the law of that country in that country it can be dragged halfway around the world to answer contempt charges arising out of a foreign courts ineffective order ineffective because it was not domesticated in that country and then the court goes on to say but at risk of being unduly repetitious we will put our discussion into the more traditional terms outlined by the minimum contact analysis and so what the court is saying is if it's not domesticated the the federal district court does not have the power to reach out and grab that non domestic actor but in order to flesh out the analysis we're going to talk about it in terms in addition to what we just already talked about it in terms of a minimum contacts analysis and the minimum contacts analysis i'm way over time at this point is you have  i read the brief it's in there for quite quite extensively i do appreciate your your the court's indulgence i apologize for going over but i was asking the question i was answering questions in reebok first of all there was full discovery everybody knew the facts nothing was in dispute but the court just ruled that was the bank in contempt and she would take action but in reebok's separate apart from that the bank in luxembourg is where the that my country wouldn't have allowed me to do it that could be a defense which is disputed up to now there's been no discovery on it we certainly are not conceding that that they had that obligation but let's find out had the opportunity for a full discovery we did not hear opportunity why did you because the district court limited us only to discovery within the united states and i did not understand that to include getting letters or other tory or other things maintained this correspondent account or even the fact that they used it to move tens of millions of dollars that that's what gives a specific jurisdiction here it's moving this particular money there was receivership assets with full knowledge that the court's order said that it should not move that money and using the new york account to do it that is what gives a specific jurisdiction the domestication would have only allowed us to go into moldova and get a moldovan court order what else do you need to know i want to know for instance who own victoria bank on september twenty fifth nice enough well done to direct it that they done both who owned it and who directed that money be moved because it may be some of the same people because a lot go testified corkin told me he owned a big chunk of that day a lot of testified plot tone not just somebody told me somebody but tone told me he owed a big chunk of that bank we have a newspaper many years after it was and we didn't know of the transfer until late two thousand and fifteen i mean for most of the last three years we've been working on this we have been under the impression because we've been being told the money's there we just have to figure out how to get victoria back to let go of the one until the end of twenty fifteen where we learned that money was gone in september two thousand and twelve and has been gone for the last three years that's when we went to the district court and said your honor that's contempt