Government of the United States Virgin Islands v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 122-cv-10904 (S.D.N.Y. 2022)/226-52.pdf

EXHIBIT 51 Case 1:22-cv-10904-JSR Document 226-52 Filed 07/24/23 Page 1 of 12 1 SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 N6QQdoeC UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK ------------------------------x JANE DOES, individually and on behalf of all others similarly situated Plaintiffs v. 22 Civ. 10019 (JSR) Conference JP MORGAN CHASE BANK N.A. Defendants ------------------------------x New York, N.Y. June 26, 2023 5:30 p.m. Before: HON. JED S. RAKOFF District Judge APPEARANCES BOIES SCHILLER & FLEXNER LLP Attorneys for Plaintiffs DAVID BOIES SIGRID S. McCAWLEY ANDREW VILLACASTIN DANIEL CRISPINO EDWARDS HENDERSON LEHRMAN PLLC Attorney for Plaintiffs BRITTANY HENDERSON WILMER CUTLER PICKERING HALE & DORR LLP Attorneys for Defendants FELICIA H. ELLSWORTH BOYD M. JOHNSON III MOTLEY RICE LLC Attorney for United States Virgin Islands WILLIAM H. NARWOLD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Case 1:22-cv-10904-JSR Document 226-52 Filed 07/24/23 Page 2 of 12 2 SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 N6QQdoeC (In open court; case called) DEPUTY CLERK: Will everyone please be seated and will the parties please identify themselves for the record. MR. BOIES: Good afternoon, your Honor. David Boies of Boies Schiller & Flexner, counsel for plaintiff. With me at counsel table are my colleagues, Sigrid McCawley from my firm, Brittany Henderson from Edwards Henderson. Andrew Villacastin from Boies Schiller and Daniel Crispino from Boies Schiller. THE COURT: Good afternoon. MS. ELLSWORTH: Good afternoon, your Honor. Felicia Ellsworth from Wilmer Hale for defendant JP Morgan. With me is Boyd Johnson. MR. NARWOLD: Good afternoon, your Honor. Bill Narwold, Motely Rice. We are counsel for the U.S. Virgin Islands in the consolidated case. THE COURT: Good afternoon. So this is a hearing to address preliminary approval of the class action settlement in the case involving Jane Doe v. JP Morgan, and I have already very carefully reviewed the papers and find that so far, as preliminary approval is concerned, all the Rule 23 requirements and all the Grinnell requirements are fully satisfied, and the notice, I'm glad to see, has a very good description of the class, so I am glad we were able to work that out. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Case 1:22-cv-10904-JSR Document 226-52 Filed 07/24/23 Page 3 of 12 3 SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 N6QQdoeC There were only two questions I had. The first is the parties recommend that Simone Lelchuk be the claims administrator, and, of course, she was who I selected in the Deutsche Bank settlement after looking at the other two candidates, who were very well qualified as well. Although they were retired judges, but notwithstanding that, they were very well qualified. But I wanted to be sure that if I appointed Ms. Lelchuk here, which makes a lot of sense, that her fees would be the same as in the Deutsche Bank case because that was one of the factors that led to my appointing her, which is that her fees were less than her two competitors, so to speak. Is that the case or have you checked that with her? MR. BOIES: That is the case, your Honor. THE COURT: Very good. So I will appoint her. The other question I had was in the Deutsche Bank settlement, every victim who qualified was guaranteed I think it was $75,000, and here there is no such minimum guarantee so to speak. Why not? MR. BOIES: Your Honor, the $75,000 was designed for what we thought were the particular circumstances of the Deutsche Bank settlement. And I think we talked about at the time of preliminary approval of that settlement. Because of the nature of Mr. Epstein's sex trafficking during the period of time that he was banking with Deutsche Bank, almost all of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Case 1:22-cv-10904-JSR Document 226-52 Filed 07/24/23 Page 4 of 12 4 SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 N6QQdoeC the victims were people who had come from Russia and Eastern Europe. We did not have as good an ability to contact them, and, in addition to that, for a variety of cultural circumstances, we were very concerned they would not respond simply to a notice from the court, and we wanted to (A) -- THE COURT: You thought $75,000 might be an incentive? MR. BOIES: Exactly, your Honor. And we did not think that that was necessary with respect to the people covered by this class, which are predominantly people in the United States, and we thought a more traditional class allocation program was more appropriate. THE COURT: Let me ask you this: Supposing the claims administrator awards X amount to one victim and a lesser amount to some other victim, and that other victim feels they're similarly situated, as I understand the proposed settlement, they have no remedy. Is that right? MR. BOIES: That is right, your Honor. The way it was done in the Deutsche Bank settlement, and here, and in other settlements like this, is that a qualified claims administrator makes these very difficult choices in terms of allocating portions of the settlement fund to various survivors. It would be, I think, very difficult administratively to set up a detailed appeal process, for example. It is not impossible, but both with respect to what we've done in the past, what was done in the Epstein estate claims process, the approach was the 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Case 1:22-cv-10904-JSR Document 226-52 Filed 07/24/23 Page 5 of 12 5 SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 N6QQdoeC approach that we've taken here. THE COURT: Well, I accept that, and it makes sense because to set up an appellate process I think would be just a waste of the settlement money, as well as delay probably greatly the process. But I may reserve the right, and I don't think we need to put this into any formal order, but to periodically take a look at how the claims administrator is making her decision just so that I can feel totally comfortable that everything is proceeding well. So I just mention that, and you can convey that to her. MR. BOIES: I will, your Honor. Our view is that this all continues under the Court's jurisdiction. THE COURT: Very good. So I'm going to approve -- preliminarily approve the settlement. I'll issue an order tomorrow which will include all the relevant dates. I say that having been apprised today that I got one or two of the dates wrong in the Deutsche Bank settlement, but you know I only have ten fingers. But hopefully we will fix that tomorrow as well. Hopefully I will get the dates right this time. Anything else we need to take up today? MR. BOIES: Not from us, your Honor. THE COURT: Anything from the defense? MS. ELLSWORTH: Nothing from JP Morgan. MR. NARWOLD: Your Honor, Bill Narwold from Motley 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Case 1:22-cv-10904-JSR Document 226-52 Filed 07/24/23 Page 6 of 12 6 SOUTHERN DISTRICT REPORTERS, P.C. (212) 805-0300 N6QQdoeC Rice for the U.S. Virgin Islands. I simply wanted to alert the Court and the parties of an issue that may come up down the road, and that's the following: