Inside $1.6 Billion Judgment Against China Construction America

John is joined by Jacob Buchdahl, partner at Susman Godfrey.  They discuss the landmark $1.6 billion judgment Jacob recently won in New York state court on behalf of BML Properties against China Construction America, Inc. (CCA).  The case concerned allegations of fraud and breach of contract over the failed development of the Baha Mar Resort, a luxury property in the Bahamas.  Jacob explains that BML Properties envisioned the Baha Mar Resort as a competitor to the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas.  Following the 2007 financial crisis, BML secured funding from a Chinese policy bank, which required hiring CCA as the contractor as part of China’s Belt and Road initiative.  CCA, a subsidiary of the state-owned China State Construction Engineering Corporation, also became an investor in the project.  The relationship soured as construction delays mounted, culminating in late 2014 when CCA promised that the resort would open in March 2015.  Relying on these assurances, BML incurred significant expenses to prepare for the opening.  However, internal CCA documents obtained during discovery showed that CCA knew it could not meet the deadline and withheld this information.  Worse, the documents suggested CCA intentionally delayed completion to maintain leverage over BML, leading to a liquidity crisis, bankruptcy, and the loss of BML’s $800 million investment.  Jacob explains his legal strategy, including narrowing the case to focus on fraudulent acts at the critical late stages of the project and contractual breaches that were clearly distinguishable from the fraud allegations.  He explains that the trial featured crucial evidence from internal communications and expert testimony on damages and financial mismanagement.  He also explains that the judgment is nearly twice BML’s damages because of New York’s high pre-trial interest rates.  Despite CCA’s appeal and potential bankruptcy, Jacob remains optimistic about enforcing the judgment and securing justice for his client.

Podcast Link: Law-disrupted.fm
Host: John B. Quinn 
Producer: Alexis Hyde
Music and Editing by: Alexander Rossi

Transcript

JOHN QUINN: [00:00:00] This is John Quinn and this is Law Disrupted and today we're going to be talking to Jacob Buchdahl of the esteemable Sussman Godfrey firm about an incredible result he got in a New York State court. An award of 1. 6 billion dollars for his client BML Properties. Against construct China Construction America, Inc.

relating to the development of a luxury resort in the Bahamas. Jacob, you know, 1st, congratulations on this incredible win. What would begin by you giving this kind of a summary of what this case was all about? 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: Sure, and thank you for having me, John. So, we, our client BML Properties is an entity that's, uh, was formed and controlled by a real estate developer, an investor named Sarkis Izmirlian.

And Mr. Izmirlian had the idea to develop the Bahamar Resort way back, uh, [00:01:00] In the early part of right, you know, shortly after, um, I think even going back to the 90s, when kind of mega resort started to 1st appear on the scene in Las Vegas and elsewhere around the world. And he was from the Bahamas and had this idea of taking this.

Stretch of land called cable beach near Nassau and taking the existing properties that were there and combining them and expanding the boundaries of the development so that he could build a number of different hotels. A casino, a world class golf course and kind of make it a big destination. Atlantis had already been put together in the Bahamas.

And this would be a competitor with Atlanta. So we'd have a better location because it was closer to the airport. And this was circuses vision and his kind of dream for what to kind of put together in the Bahamas. And he started to do that. And he had it all lined up [00:02:00] when the financial crisis hit in 2007.

And after that, he had to kind of start from scratch. And put together a new set of partners and the lender that he was able to, uh, use at that time, um, asked him to use a Chinese contractor. And that is why he got involved with China state and China state, which is based in mainland China is 1 of the largest, if not the largest contractors in the world.

It has a domestic Western Hemisphere affiliate called China Construction America, or CCA, Inc. It goes by now. And a lot of, really everything in the Western Hemisphere that China State did flowed through CCA. 

JOHN QUINN: I have to ask, sorry to interrupt, but why would the lender specify a Chinese construction company?

JACOB BUCHDAHL: So, so the, the lender is the China X. Export that explains it and it's a policy [00:03:00] bank of the Chinese government and really this is kind of all fits into the Belt and Road initiative that China did, which has done a lot of important construction projects around the world. The Belt and Road continues all the way to the Bahamas.

It does it does and and really, um, kind of C. C. A. Inc. was the kind of Western Hemisphere arm of this initiative. And so part of the interest of the Chinese government in funding. These projects was to kind of help their their construction companies get footholds in these different countries. So C. C. A. A, which had a, you know, Its own subsidiary in the Bahamas that it formed for this purpose, um, was the contractor and was also an investor in the project.

And so there was an investors agreement and that was the source of the kind of breach of contract claims that were brought here. And we also had fraud claims, because what happened was, [00:04:00] as the project went along, as as projects often do, there are delays and there are conflicts between the developer and the, in the construction.

Manager because CCA was the construction manager as well as the general contractor, but as things got closer to completion, it came to a head. And really it was in the fall of 2014 that the parties got together, sat down and a bunch of promises were made to our client. And the heart of the promise was that the complex was going to be ready to open for paying guests in March of 2015.

And this was in November of 2014. So there wasn't a long way to go. And in reliance on that promise, our clients started to take all the steps that you would need to take to really get the resort ready. And that included hiring thousands of employees, starting to train them for the various jobs they would have around the resort starting to, you know, really put the finishing touches in terms of kind of, you know, Things [00:05:00] like flying cash in for the casino, a lot of steps taken in reliance on on these promises that the that the project would be ready to open and what happened was it started to become clear.

We now know this started to become clear on the part of the contractor that they weren't going to have it ready to open and we were able through discovery to get access to Chinese language documents, which upon translation revealed that they were sending panicked communications back. To China saying, we need more manpower.

We're not going to be able to get this ready. We are, um, you know, it's going to be a huge disaster. It's going to be a huge embarrassment for our company. And none of this was disclosed to our client who continued to kind of proceed and draw down funds and spend money in ways that they wouldn't have done.

Had they known that the Project wouldn't actually be ready to open at the end of March. 

JOHN QUINN: So this, this was kind of a promissory fraud theory. We promise. [00:06:00] But there they had their fingers crossed behind their back and the documents showed that they, they knew they couldn't do what they were promising.

That's essentially it. 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: That is right, John, and even after they figured out that they weren't going to be able to keep the promise, they kept doubling down and saying, yes, don't worry. We will have the place open on time. And they didn't disclose the true reality of what was going on with their manpower and just the other problems that they were having, trying to get the resort open.

So it was. It led to a big liquidity crisis because the project ran out of money. They tried to kind of negotiate a way to extend the opening date. They failed to do that. And ultimately, our client filed a bankruptcy petition in Delaware in the middle of 2015, but the contractor managed to get that dismissed in favor of a liquidation.

In the Bahamas and what happened was our client lost his entire investment in the project and that [00:07:00] investment was large. It was an investment that the parties had valued at over 800Million dollars and. That combined with the very, very aggressive. New York pre trial interest is what led to a 1. 6Billion dollar judgment.

It is, um, you know, things add up because from 2015 to when this case was tried in. 2024, uh, the amount of the judgment nearly doubled 

JOHN QUINN: was governed by New York law, New York choice, choice of forum in the applicable agreements and the investors agreement. That's right. So I know from experience in New York that it can be tricky to be in New York and under New York law and the commercial transaction to bring both a fraud claim and a breach of contract claim.

New York courts generally don't like to see that you kind of have to choose. 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: That's right, and I think that 1 of the successes before our firm was hired, um, that I credit our predecessor for, um, that's really Peter Sheridan of the firm while [00:08:00] construction focus firm based in Los Angeles, he filed a. 200 page plus complaint kind of setting out various breaches of contract in various fraudulent claims.

And really, it was the, the, and that that motion to dismiss was denied and then the decision denying that motion to dismiss was affirmed by the 1st department before we were even involved. And really, it was, they had to show that, as you know, that there were kind of false promises that were collateral to the contract and that were false statements of present fact that had nothing to do with the separate breaches, even if they related to the same course of conduct.

And the 1st department hasn't exactly been wildly consistent with these types of rulings over the years, but this pleading instrument managed to kind of set it out. What that left us with, though, was a. Kind of 200 plus, you know, more than a dozen claims, uh, 200 pages, a complaint that [00:09:00] was relatively unwieldy in terms of anything that would result in a triable case, right?

We were hired kind of at the beginning of the discovery. And the 1st thing we did was come in as often happens and file a motion to compel because we didn't think we had gotten the sufficient amount of internal communications and that's when we were able to get some of the great. Documents that we found that kind of revealed a lot of the falsehoods that had been made, you know, had been communicated to our client.

Um, but then the other thing we really had to do was boil down the case to a theory of reach of contract and a theory of fraud that was coherent and simple enough that we could present this at an actual trial, right? Because as we did initially, it was, you know, kind of one fraud after another, after another, obviously.

It's hard to persuade a fact finder that you've been defrauded over and over and over again because at a certain point, you're asking, well, why 

JOHN QUINN: is this reliance [00:10:00] justifiable if you've been defrauded by these people so many times? I mean, so how did you do that? Did you did you do some mock exercises? How did you decide what to trim?

What to focus on what the through line of the case would be a trial? 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: I think part of it was. It wasn't so much a mock exercise as a kind of real focus on the key parts of the timeline. Because as I said, this, this project had gone on for a number of years, but really the kind of critical focal point and the critical turning point of the project was in November of 2014.

And so we said, we're not going to allege any fraud prior to that time. We're going to focus At this kind of critical late stage promises, because that's really where the key reliance occurred that led to the damages. And as you know, you know, one of the things that you have to focus on as a plaintiff's attorney is how do you draw the line from your damages to your cause of action?

[00:11:00] Because a successful cause of action without damages is useless, right? And vice versa. So we really thought hard about. What is what is the best way to tie the loss of this investment to a legal claim? And so 1 way was through this kind of a late stage fraud. And what was challenging about it was that a lot of the investment had already been made.

And so the theory of the fraud was. Our client was unable to take the steps that he would have taken to protect and preserve that investment, but for the false statements on which he relied. We also looked real carefully at the contract to think about what would be a contractual provision sufficiently distinguishable from the fraud that we were.

Alleging that would make that a kind of separately triable case and what we focused on was a provision in the investors agreement to required. A board member nominated by the by the contractor [00:12:00] and construction manager to be appointed to the board of the project and at all times. Um, act in the best interest of the project now.

You might argue that this created a little bit of a conflict of interest for the construction manager, and it likely did, but 1 of the turning points at trial, you know, there's always things at trial when you're cross examining a witness that you don't see coming. You don't necessarily expect 1 of the turning points.

In this case at trial came when the board member who had replaced an earlier board member that the contractor had nominated up on the stand. He admitted that when he became a board member, he had never even read the investors agreement, right? So here's a board member with obligations to act in the best interests of the project.

He wasn't even aware. Of those obligations at the time he joined this board and so we could then show that not only was he making decisions that were not in the best interest of the project, but he didn't even know that he was that he was obligated to do [00:13:00] that.

JOHN QUINN: That seems like kind of obvious thing to have done or at least to have prepared the witness for.

JACOB BUCHDAHL: Look, it was, it was, we were, we were surprised, um, but I think it was, you know, look, sometimes you can be surprised by candor as much as you become surprised by the lack of candor when you get a witness on the stand. And, and, you know, this was a, this was someone who was no longer employed by the company.

Um, you know, he had signed a consulting agreement in, in preparation for the trial. But, um, you know, I think that he, His view was I'm going to get up there and I'm just going to tell what happened as best I can recall. And, um, you know, I'm not sure that his testimony helped his former employer, but it was a dramatic moment in the trial.

So how did this case originally come to you? Um, that's a great question. I, um, You know, we talked with our junior lawyers about business development and how this comes along. And, you know, almost always there's some, well, at least for someone like me, there's some relationship involved earlier. And, [00:14:00] and this was a, uh, one of a number of cases that was referred to me by friends of mine at Cobra and Kim, and specifically Michael Kim, who had, had worked with Sarkis as Merlion before.

And when this case came along, he, his firm couldn't handle it himself because of other work, um, related work they had done that he thought might be a little bit of a conflict. So he introduced the client to us when they were looking for trial lawyers to kind of step in for the kind of construction focused lawyers that they had worked with kind of during the course of the project.

JOHN QUINN: And that was the Glaser Weill firm in LA. Of course, we know that that firm very well. Yeah. How did how did this client end up with glazer while do you know?

JACOB BUCHDAHL: I don't know how they hired them, but there had been different dispute resolution Mechanisms that had been in operation during the course of the project.

They had actually had some kind of mid project Arbitrations and glazer while [00:15:00] had been their counsel throughout that period and so I think when it came time to file their commercial complaint They used glazer while it Um, for given their familiarity with the project, then I think as they face the prospect of, you know, heated commercial discovery, and ultimately a trial that they correctly anticipated, they went looking for firms that were more focused on that.

JOHN QUINN: Had you done this type of case before a failed project, a failed development with, uh, you know, construction overlays and the like, is that something you have a lot of experience at. 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: Yeah. The short answer is no, I've been retained now in a 2nd, 1 relating to the tap and see bridge, but they, but this 1 and that tap and see bridge is different in that.

It's not a failed project that bridges is working very nicely now under a different name, the Mario bridge, but it is, um. The short answer is no, and I, you know, I think. This happens a lot that that, um, when I'm talking to a potential [00:16:00] client, um, I try to encourage them that what they're looking for is someone who knows how to persuade people rather than someone with a depth of familiarity with the particular subject matter Of their case, and I was, I'd obviously tried fraud cases before.

I'd obviously tried reach a contract cases before. This is my 1st construction matter. And so, for me, there was a learning curve in terms of working with the various experts, learning all the terminology construction in my own personal life have been limited to renovation of a co op and there's a big difference between that and.

Uh, you know, building for different hotels and a casino and a golf course, but it is, um, you know, it's 1 of the joys of our profession. I think is that you get to learn about a new industry and hear about the challenges that come up along the way. And obviously, when we get involved, something has gone wrong.

So you can see, you know, the good and the bad that comes along with some of these big projects. But it was 

my 1st. Construction,

JOHN QUINN: I think the learning is the best part of what we do. A [00:17:00] lot of these construction cases, you hear about them. There are thousands of claims, uh, you know, they, you know, it makes your head hurt to hear what people who try to have the job of resolving all these claims that you sampling and other techniques and procedural devices to resolving all those.

You know, was this beyond the scope? Was this a defect or whatever? I take it You didn't have to do that type of analysis here or was that part of it? 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: It was part of it Because part of what they tried to do with their defense was talk about delays being the consequence of design changes that our client had asked for and I think that one of the You One of the key insights we brought to this case was that if we were going to win it big, as opposed to just winning it, it couldn't just be a construction dispute.

This could not be a kind of trenches style slog where we had this change order and they had this [00:18:00] reaction and then we had this, you know, compromise if we wanted to win this big, we had to make it a bigger story of fraud and we had to make it have a have a story to tell that kind of covered the whole arc of the case rather than kind of get into the trenches.

Is with regard to each particular, um, you know, dispute over what this room was going to look like, and what this elevator was going to look like, and whether this smoke alarm system was functioning properly. And so, you know, I think that's that's the case in a lot of different areas. I think back to when.

You know, the, the 1st kind of, um, residential mortgage backed securities cases were coming along and you'd, you'd get up against defendants and they'd want to be talking about, you know, loan by loan. Let's, let's get into the weeds of this and drag the fact finder down into kind of making this seem like it's really just 1000 different individual decisions.

Whereas on the plaintiff side, you want to try to have a bigger picture story about wider [00:19:00] scale wrongdoing on the part of the defendant. And that's the way you kind of win the court over, or the jury over to your side in a story that makes sense. And it's not that kind of mind numbing detail that I think usually benefits defendants.

JOHN QUINN: Yeah, I mean, it sounds like it was really key that you got these internal documents that showed that they really. Didn't have the prospect and didn't expect that they were going to be able to do what they promised in terms of the timing of completion. Were you and these were Chinese language documents?

Were you surprised you got those documents? Sometimes 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: I'm always surprised when you get the hot document, John. I mean, you know, I look, we all are. Dependent, right? Our profession is 100 percent dependent on the kind of good faith Actions of our adversaries in a lot of ways, right? You have to produce the documents even the ones that are painful to produce and we've all been there When you've seen a document on your [00:20:00] side that you think wow, the other side knows nothing about this It's bad for our case and we've just got to turn it over because that's how the game is played 

JOHN QUINN: There are always bad documents.

There's always bad documents 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: There really are. And, and, you know, so I've, we've all been on both sides of this, where we've had to produce them and we've had the benefit of receiving them. And here, you know, the documents went beyond just, um, just the kind of acknowledgement that there was a problem and they wouldn't be ready on time.

The even worse documents we saw suggested that. They were okay with this because they thought that financially they'd be better off if they didn't open the project on time. In other words, they were concerned enough about the change orders and about kind of the, the retain age and about different monies that they thought they were owed that they thought, you know, what, we're going to lose our leverage.

If this project opens and the way to maintain our leverage is, is [00:21:00] to kind of hold back enough work so that they have to write us more checks before we will actually turn over the keys to these rooms and let them start bringing guests in. And that was the part that I think really. You know, uh, revealed kind of the, the, the bad actions on, on the other side and kind of what, what turned it into a fraud that the court could really sink its teeth into.

And, and look, it was, you know, ultimately cases can be close until they're not close anymore. And it ends up being a relatively lopsided result. But, you know, if you read, if you read this opinion, the judge ended up kind of. Really not having a lot of patience for some of the excuses that they made along the way.

And, and, you know, that wasn't necessarily evident in the courtroom. Um, you're always doing your best to read a jury. And when you have a bench trial like this one, you're doing the same thing with that judge. You're kind of, you know, always have one eye kind of staring at him, trying to figure out where he's, you know, where he's going, who, what witnesses he's responding to, what he's thinking.

[00:22:00] And this judge, you know, to his credit, did a good job of, of keeping his cards. Yeah. Reasonably close to his chest and, and, and, you know, so by the end, you know, we were optimistic, but it's still just a relief. And one of the disadvantages of a bench trial is you don't get to find, you go home, you don't know who won yet and you have to wait.

Um, but this judge, uh, got that opinion out pretty quickly. You know, there have been times I've tried cases in the commercial division and waited a year for a result. This was, this was not that, it was only a few weeks and that was a true relief to our client. How long was the trial? 

JOHN QUINN: Um, it went into a 3rd week is a little over 2 weeks and and was that was their expert testimony?

I assume there was on what subjects and how important was it? 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: There, there was expert testimony, obviously damages, which is essential. Um, and I think that, you know, 1 of the things that we saw with their damages expert, which you see a lot, frankly, is that, um. Managed to find out that there were no damages whatsoever.

Right? And I, I always am. I'm a [00:23:00] little surprised when defendants do that, right? Because you think to yourself, it's not a baseball arbitration, right? They don't have to pick 1. but if you don't give any credible, reasonable alternative, I'm, of course, if the judge thinks that there's liability, They're going to, you know, you haven't given them anything.

JOHN QUINN: Yeah, it's always a, it's always a hypothetical. So many often defendants are concerned that well, if I put on a damages case, that's some kind of acknowledgement that there's liability. I'm undercutting my liability case. And I, like, you, I've never really understood that because it's always sort of hypothetical.

Okay. If we lose on liability, the damages are. This is what the damages would be much lower than the plaintiff's overreach, 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: right? And I think that in a bench trial, there's even less excuse for, for doing that. Right? Because you don't, you're not worried about somehow sending a mixed message to a, to a less sophisticated jury.

We had both sides presented construction experts. [00:24:00] And that was kind of had more to do with, you know, were there delays that were attributable to one side or the other? And that was, you know, as I said, it was where they wanted to put a fair amount of their attention. The expert that we called that they didn't have an answer for was, um, was someone who kind of talked a little bit about.

Um, it was forensic accountant and he talked about some traced some of the flow of funds because 1 of the things we wanted to show was that they were misusing some of the money that they had gotten on the project. And that expert also offered some opinions about the way that funds had been commingled among the different defendant entities, which ended up being important for our veil piercing claim.

Because while a fraud could be attributable to any 1 of the defendants, the. Breach of contract, right? We only have 1 defendant who actually signed the contract. And so to get the judgment against all of the defendant entities, the judge had to find and did find [00:25:00] that. That the corporate veil should be pierced and so that experts findings about the kind of.

Cavalier use of different monies by different entities in the way that they were not careful about segregating funds, I think, ended up being important as part of that case. 

JOHN QUINN: That expert testified not that the veil should be pierced per se, which would be a purely legal issue, presumably, but sort of from accounting standpoint about how money was commingled and and moved.

Uh, in an inappropriate way between the entities, which is that right? 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: That's right. And he also talked a little bit about, um, kind of overlap of officers and directors and kind of the way that you didn't really see a separation in terms of the corporate form. And I think that, look, I don't know that they could have.

Found an expert to say much different in that regard, but it was helpful to us to not have to do all of that through cross examination and to be able to put [00:26:00] on an expert with some of that as well. So it was, you know, we had, we had, um, you know, we had a 4th expert who talked a little bit about kind of the background of, you know, Kind of these Chinese policy banks that ended up not being particularly in hindsight.

I wouldn't have called that expert again. If it didn't end up mattering that much. So, the truth is that that, um, you know, really, uh, the misconduct here was domestic misconduct. It wasn't really anything wrong that there wasn't really any wrongdoing that we perceived in China. It was all kind of what you almost might think of as a rogue domestic.

Affiliate, uh, here, um, that I think in many ways, you know, gave a black eye to the, to the Chinese parent, um, by kind of mismanaging a huge, uh, opportunity here in the Bahamas. 

JOHN QUINN: Have you heard anything about any blowback, uh, in China from this result or how this has been received? 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: I [00:27:00] haven't, um, you know, look one one question with a, uh, with with the judgment of this size is whether you're going to um, see a bankruptcy result from it and we're optimistic that's not going to happen.

I mean, I think that um, it would be unusual for China state for the, for the Chinese parent to kind of permit. It's a state owned entity. The Chinese is a state owned entity. Um, you know, I think they would look, obviously, they, they can't be happy about the actions of their American, you know, in Western hemisphere affiliates.

Um, but I think that, you know. Letting them file for bankruptcy would be kind of admission of failure here. That would be, I think, unhelpful to their overall project. They've done a lot of work in the Caribbean in the Americas. I mean, C. C. A. Inc. has has now done work all over America. Um, I don't, I would be surprised if they wanted to let that go.

I, I hope they kind of keep the company going and, and [00:28:00] look, we're in the middle of an appeal, but, but I'm always interested in resolving my cases rather than continuing to fight them. 

JOHN QUINN: Okay, so they're, they're appealing and there is at least some possibility that there might be a bankruptcy. If there isn't a bankruptcy, do you see assets here?

Or do you can you talk about that? 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: I prefer not to talk too much about it. I will say that, um. There right now there is a motion pending before the 1st department where C. C. A. has asked to be permitted to file this appeal without a bond and what they've said is that they don't have sufficient assets that would allow them to get a bond of this size.

I mean, I think the bond with the interest that would be required on top of the post judgment interest, we're talking about a bond that's getting close to 2Billion dollars. And so they've asked to be permitted to appeal without the bond. We've opposed that. Um, and we're waiting for a decision on that, but I, I expect that will cause them to file their appeal rather promptly.

Um, and that they [00:29:00] might, they may file that brief even within the next few weeks. Um, we'll, we'll obviously wait and see, but it is, um, you know, look, it, it, uh, uh, you know, Steve Sussman always used to say. Um, that you don't make money trying cases. You make money selling cases and that's as now as it ever was, uh, 

JOHN QUINN: for Steve.

Yeah, well, hopefully it can be worked out. Sounds like that. That would be the best result for everybody concerned here. Now, look, your firm is very, very famous for, uh, investing in cases. And taking cases on a contingency basis, Steve used to say, that's the only basis on which you took cases. I don't know if you can comment.

Uh, you probably can't, but I thought I'd ask the question about what your fee deal here is. 

JACOB BUCHDAHL: I don't mind, I don't mind sharing that we do have a contingent interest in the outcome here. It wasn't a purely contingent fee case in this instance, but we do have a, um, a [00:30:00] sufficiently sizable contingent interest in this John that I am very, very personally interested in the outcome more so than for professional pride.

JOHN QUINN: Well, it sounds like a really interesting case, a project that was conceived almost 20 years ago and a client who stuck with the project through thick and thin, uh, and then lost everything. And you were able to put together a case that there was fraud involved, uh, and breaches of contract with a really amazing result of 1.

6 billion dollar award. I congratulate you on that. It's a very interesting story. Thank you very much, John. I appreciate it. We've been speaking with Jacob Buchdahl of the Sussman Godfrey Firm. This is John Quinn, and this has been Law Disrupted.

Thank you for listening to Law Disrupted with me, John Quinn. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a rating and review [00:31:00] on your chosen podcast app. To stay up to date with the latest episodes, you can sign up for email alerts at our websites law disrupted. fm or follow me on x at jbq law or at Quinn Emanuel.

Thank you for tuning 

in.