Home/S.D. New York/Bonacasa v. Standard Chartered PLC

Bonacasa v. Standard Chartered PLC

District Court, S.D. New York·Decided July 11, 2025·No. 1:22-cv-03320·Unknown

Opinion

al □□□□□ SUSMAN GODFREY L.L.P.

The Honorable Edgardo Ramos July 9, 2025 United States District Court for the Southern District of New York Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse 40 Foley Square New York, NY 10007 Re: | Bonacasa v. Standard Chartered Bank (No. 1:22-cv-03320); Moore v. Standard Chartered Bank (No. 1:23-cv-02865); Smedinghoff vy. Standard Chartered Bank (No. 1:23-cv-02865) Dear Judge Ramos: Pursuant to Section 1.A of Your Honor’s Individual Practices, Plaintiffs in the above-captioned cases respectfully request that the Court waive the pre-motion conference requirement and add Topics 1 and 2 of Plaintiffs’ Rule 30(b)(6) Notice (ECF No. 95-1) to Plaintiffs’ pending, fully briefed motion to compel 30(b)(6) testimony and interrogatory responses from Defendant Standard Chartered Bank (“SCB”). See ECF No. 108. In the alternative, Plaintiffs request a pre-motion conference regarding Topics 1 and 2 at the Court’s convenience. ! I. Background Topics 1 and 2 seek corporate representative testimony from SCB about its client relationship with the Fatima Group (‘Fatima’) and the financial services that SCB provided to Fatima—critically relevant issues that lie at the core of Plaintiffs’ aiding-and-abetting claims. On February 21, 2025, SCB informed Plaintiffs that it was “working to identify a representative to testify separately for Topic Nos. 1 and 2.” ECF No. 100-11 at 1. In the two-plus months between that email and Plaintiffs’ filing of their May 1, 2025 request for a pre-motion conference regarding 30(b)(6) topics and interrogatory responses, SCB never altered its position that it would designate and prepare a witness on Topics | and 2. Based on SCB’s representations, Plaintiffs omitted Topics 1 and 2 from their letter requesting a discovery conference. See ECF No. 95. In its response letter, SCB continued to represent that it would designate and prepare a witness on Topics 1 and 2. ECF No. 101 at 1 (representing that “SCB has agreed to provide” an “additional current employee[] to act as [a] corporate witness[]” on “SCB’s client relationship with Fatima”); id. at 2 (“SCB also has agreed to provide a corporate representative to testify about ‘all Financial Services that SCB has provided to Fatima’”). SCB repeated those representations at the May 8, 2025 pre-motion conference. SCB told the Court: “We've also agreed to make available an additional corporate representative to talk about another topic that plaintiff[s’] counsel raised today, and that is the bank’s relationship with Fatima and the financial services that . . . the bank provided to Fatima over the relevant time period.” ECF No. 126-1 (“PMC Tr.”) at 14:10-15. SCB continued: “/WJe’ve already told the plaintiffs that we will make somebody available. In this score, we’re going to have to educate somebody to look at the transactional records related to the relationship based on the documents and . . . try as best as they can to provide testimony.” Id. at 14:21—25. SCB made these representations in an attempt to avoid answering Interrogatory 8—which is pending before the Court and, as narrowed, seeks a listing of the various financial services that SCB provided to Fatima. See, e.g., ECF No. 100-16 at

' Unless otherwise indicated, all emphasis in this letter has been added; all internal quotations and citations have been omitted; all internal alterations have been adopted; and all ECF citations refer to the Smedinghoff docket.

3 (objecting to Plaintiffs’ interrogatories, including Interrogatory 8, on the ground that they are not “more efficient” than “document discovery and depositions of current and former employees, including designated corporate witnesses”).

Now as fact discovery is scheduled to close, SCB has retracted its repeated representations that it would designate a witness to testify on Topics 1 and 2. On June 18, 2025, SCB confirmed that David Howes—the last remaining fact witness noticed by Plaintiffs—would not be serving as SCB’s corporate representative on Topics 1 and 2. Ex. A at 5. As a result, Plaintiffs asked SCB to identify the corporate representative for Topics 1 and 2 that SCB had been promising for more than four months. Id. at 4. In response, SCB claimed—for the first time—that it will now only provide testimony on Topics 1 and 2 if it does not have to answer Interrogatory 8. Id. at 1.

In short, Plaintiffs brought—and the parties briefed—Plaintiffs’ pending motion to compel based on SCB’s representations that it would provide testimony on Topics 1 and 2 but would not answer Interrogatory 8 absent a Court order. But now, SCB only agrees to provide testimony on Topics 1 and 2 if the Court declines to order a response to Interrogatory 8 when deciding Plaintiffs’ pending motion.2 II. The Court should compel SCB to provide corporate representative testimony on Topics 1 and 2 in addition to compelling a response to Interrogatory 8. Plaintiffs are entitled to examine SCB’s corporate representative on Topics 1 and 2 after receiving the list of financial services sought by Interrogatory 8. Plaintiffs allege that SCB aided and abetted improvised explosive device attacks by providing “significant financial services” to Fatima. Bonacasa v. Standard Chartered PLC, 2023 WL 2390718, at *13 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 7, 2023), reconsideration denied, 2023 WL 7110774 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 27, 2023). Topics 1 and 2 seek relevant testimony from SCB about those financial services—including details about the various loans and transaction clearing services that SCB provided to Fatima and the size, duration, and growth of SCB’s client relationship with Fatima. ECF No. 95-1 at 13–14. SCB has never disputed that these critically relevant topics go to the heart of Plaintiffs’ aiding and abetting claims.

Instead, SCB has attempted to justify its last-minute change of position by claiming that “there would be no need” for a deposition on Topics 1 and 2 if the Court orders a response to Interrogatory 8. Ex. A at 1. Wrong. Plaintiffs’ pending motion to compel a response to Interrogatory 8 seeks one thing: “the list of financial services that [SCB] provided to Fatima.” ECF No. 112 at 9; see also, e.g., ECF No. 127 at 4 (“The Court should order SCB to respond to Interrogatory 8 by providing a list of the financial services that SCB provided to Fatima . . . .”); PMC Tr. at 21:17–19 (“What we’ve said would be more practical to address in an interrogatory is to give us the list, what services did you provide on X date, we gave X loan, or X dollars.”); id. at 23:14–15 (“[T]he information we’re seeking in the interrogatory is the list.”). As explained in Plaintiffs’ motion, it is appropriate to provide that list via interrogatory response—rather than in a 30(b)(6) deposition— because a corporate representative could never be expected to memorize the dates and amounts of the myriad financial services that SCB provided to Fatima. See, e.g., In re Weatherford Int’l Sec.

2 Before Plaintiffs filed their pre-motion conference request, SCB did make an inadequate offer to answer Interrogatory 8 instead of designating a witness on Topics 1 and 2. ECF No. 101 at 2. But until now, SCB had not refused to answer Interrogatory 8 (as it is continuing to refuse to do) and refused to designate a witness for Topics 1 and 2. Page 3 July 9, 2025

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