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The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit is now open and in session.

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God save the United States and this honorable court.

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Good afternoon to everybody.

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Our case for argument this afternoon is Robert at Hay et al versus United States, case number 2020-2291.

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Mr. Lechner, are you ready to proceed?

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Yes, I am, Your Honor.

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Thank you.

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and you reserve 10 minutes of your total time for rebuttal.

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Is that correct?

[00:00:37] Speaker 04:
That's correct, Your Honor.

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Thank you.

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All right.

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Counselor, you may begin, please.

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Thank you.

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May it please the court.

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The decision you will make today is far more important than it might at first seem.

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Yes, I'm here to appeal a decision which is denied class counsel the hard-earned legal fees which you do after representing the class for 21 years.

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and winning for the class 100% of the damages they were owed.

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And yes, I'm here to say that it's totally unacceptable for the government not to pay the fees and costs worth hundreds of thousands of dollars of the court appointed administrator and independent business for its services for over a decade, which even continues to this day.

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But more important is the future negative impact

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of the claims court decision if it is upheld.

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Councilor, just to get a little bit more to where the rubber meets the road, I want you to address the common fund doctrine and its application or non-application here.

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The common fund doctrine.

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Common fund doctrine, Your Honor, is a common law doctrine, which when a common fund or a common benefit

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is installed, then the plaintiffs themselves or the members of the class who receive the money from the common fund or from the common benefit would normally pay the attorney fees.

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However, Section 2412B reverses that potential rule under the common law statutorily

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to shift the fees from the attorney being paid by... But doesn't that shift occur only when there's bad faith involved?

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No, Your Honor.

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There are three conditions.

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One is common fund, which is the most general one.

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The other is common benefit.

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And the third is bad faith.

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Either one of those would shift the fee.

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The statute is so clear.

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Council, this is Judge Stoll.

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Yes, Your Honor.

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I understand that, you know, you're saying that the common law doctrine applies under common law.

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But what about the argument, or maybe I should say the determination by the Court of Federal Claims, it seemed to me to make some sense where they said, you know, the common law doctrine, that applies, common fund doctrine, sorry, that applies when,

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not true for the defendants to pay in this case.

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They've already provided recovery to the plaintiff's class in this case.

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And more it's a question of whether the plaintiff's class should have had a common fund in which to pay out some amounts to the attorneys who did all the work.

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Why is it that here the common fund is going to make it so the government has to pay legal fees on top

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of the recovery that they provided to the class.

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That's because the statute specifically says so, Your Honor.

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Well, doesn't it say that they should have to pay to the extent that any other party would be liable under the common law?

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So what exactly?

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Well, what do you have to support the idea that another defendant would have to pay under the common fund exception?

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I don't understand what that signal said, but can you hear me, Your Honor?

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Yes, I can.

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I apologize.

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I'm sitting in my chambers right now, and that's my computer.

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So I apologize that it may be.

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Please continue.

[00:04:44] Speaker 03:
That's quite all right.

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Your Honor, the principle of the common law has been shifted 40 years ago by Congress specifically

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If one reads 2412B, it is, there's no question that the United, and I'm quoting now, second sentence of 2412B, the United States shall be liable for such fees and expenses.

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to the same extent that any other party would be liable under the common law.

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So there are three groups of people who would be liable under the common law, the plaintiff itself, which is the normal American rule, the class that was created in the case under the common law.

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If we didn't have this statute, the class would have to pay their own attorney's fee or

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if there was a common benefit, that is, that the plaintiffs had established some principle which other beneficiaries would be able to take advantage of, that they would have to pay their attorneys.

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But the statute, and the wording of the statute cannot be ignored in any fashion.

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It is absolutely clear, and it's been so for 40 years.

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And in Haggard, if you recall, in Haggard 5.

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Yes, sir.

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That was the tone that you run out of time.

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You're into rebuttal time.

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But I want to make sure we're fully informed here.

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Go ahead and answer this question quickly.

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And then if any of my colleagues have any additional questions, I invite them to go ahead and answer those.

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Yes, Your Honor.

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The import of this is extraordinary because it would remove the benefit, the protections which Congress enacted in 2412B for small businesses, for veterans, for federal employees who do not bring a rails to trails case involving hundreds of millions of dollars, but rather are establishing protection for damages that they incurred

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that they have already won.

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But now the question is, who pays the attorney's fee?

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And Congress, 40 years ago, made that perfectly clear.

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All right.

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We got that part.

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Do my colleagues have any additional questions?

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Not on that issue.

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OK.

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Thank you.

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Councilor, do you want to continue on into your rebuttal time, or do you want to save the time you have left?

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No, Your Honor.

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I'm fine.

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This is so strongly the issue in this case that at this point, I really think I don't need to go any further.

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OK.

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Thank you.

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Then let's hear from Mr. Berg.

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Good afternoon, and may it please the court

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Regarding the entitlement to fees under EGIS subsection B, as I think the court articulated, there is a specific limitation in EGIS subsection B that makes the government's liability for attorney fees and expenses coextensive with that of parties under the common law.

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That is an explicit

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I have a question for you.

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I think maybe opposing counsel is interpreting that same extent as any other party would be liable under common law.

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Is that referring to like defendants, if the United States in this case were a defendant, or is that, are you able to say the United States shall be liable even as the plaintiff class?

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The reference to, sorry your honor.

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No, please continue.

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I was just concerned that you might not have understood my question, but it seems you do.

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The reference to any other party under subsection B is a reference to private parties have common law, um, based on the legislative history as articulated by this court in cases like Gavett.

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Um, and that reference therefore is a limiter of the United States liability under EJA.

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to be coextensive with a private party's liability for attorney fees and expenses at common law.

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And Mr. Lechner here today represented to the court the understanding that under the Common Fund doctrine at common law, attorney fees and expenses are not paid by the losing party or the losing defendant, but rather are spread out among

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the beneficiaries of the litigation to remedy an inequity that may otherwise exist if beneficiaries to litigation are able to benefit from it without contributing to the cost.

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Doesn't that lead to some unjust or maybe even some absurd circumstances where even in this case, the amount of money that we're talking about isn't

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as significant as in other cases.

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But attorney's fees are after 16, 17 years of litigation would be significant.

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And if the fund was to pay, if the defendants, or rather if the class was to pay the attorney's fees, there'd be no recovery.

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And wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of the Aegis statute?

[00:10:40] Speaker 02:
Not necessarily, Your Honor, because in many circumstances, class counsel may be operating on a contingency basis and class counsel here possibly could have been operating on a contingency basis from the inception of the lawsuit and in that type of circumstance.

[00:11:00] Speaker 04:
Really?

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That's one of the elements that you look at?

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that the district court would look at or the trial court in determining whether it easily applies or not, and that's whether they have a contingency fee or not.

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One of the elements in determining whether the common fund exception to the American rule is applicable is whether there is an inequity borne by counsel or by a litigant.

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And one type of inequity, as this court has recognized and haggard,

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is where in a class situation, a class action, some of the opt-in class members have not entered into separate fee arrangements with class counsel.

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That's what happened here?

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In this case, Mr. Lechner represented to the trial court that there were not contingent fee arrangements with class members, thus, based on that representation.

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That element does not apply.

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In this case, Your Honor, the trial court did find an inequity which made the Common Fund exception applicable.

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However, because the Common Fund had been depleted, found recovery under the fund, the theory, to be unavailable in the case.

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Well, wouldn't that be a reason to award the EJA fees outside of the Common Fund?

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And no, Your Honor, the analysis pursuant to EGIS subsection B as in BOY is completely distinct from the analysis that is applicable to recovery under subsection D as in delta based on the statutory text.

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The inquiry under subsection D as presented in this case is whether the government's position was substantially justified as opposed to under subsection B

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there being a disagreement about to what extent the common fund exception actually shifts fees to the losing party in the case.

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If we were to find that the government's position is not substantially justified, then theoretically the age of fees would apply.

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The government would be on the hook for that, correct?

[00:13:27] Speaker 01:
That would open up the pot.

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Yes, Your Honor, that would open up the possibility.

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Okay.

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All right.

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Thank you.

[00:13:34] Speaker 03:
Judge Shull.

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Oh, thank you, Judge Ram.

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Judge Burr, Mr. Burr, what you're saying is that, yes, the Common Fund Doctrine is in play here, but the requirements for application of the doctrine as they've been spelled out in cases are not met.

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Is that correct?

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I know your honor, let me, let me just back up a moment.

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We, we do not dispute in this case that a common fund exists.

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Yeah, that's what I mean.

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But you're saying the requirements that have been developed under the law for, uh, drawing money from the common fund for, for council and, uh, the, uh, class action administrator are not met here.

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Your Honor, we contend, based on the common law's conception of this doctrine, that fees are never shifted to the losing party in cases where a common fund doctrine applies.

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And in this case, the common fund doctrine, we agree, with the trial court, applies.

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However, fees are not shifted to the losing party under that theory of relief.

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And moreover, as class counsel specifically eschewed payment from the fund before the trial court and this court continues to do so, and the trial court reasonably concluded that the amount that was in the fund in this case was insufficient to cover both class counsel's fees and expenses and permit merits recovery, that payment

[00:15:13] Speaker 02:
The trial court reasonably concluded that payment from the common fund in this case was unavailable and that holding should be affirmed.

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So the requirements for payment from the fund as those requirements have been developed over the law weren't met, is that correct?

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That's your position?

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They were met, yes.

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Okay.

[00:15:34] Speaker 03:
Let me ask you one question I have.

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This is getting a little bit to the question of substantially justified

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The Court of Federal Claims and you in your brief refer to a situation where supposedly a settlement offer in part, a partial settlement, was proposed by the government but then was rebuffed by appellants in this case.

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And in his reply brief, Mr.

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Leckner comes back and starting at page 12 of his reply brief, uh, talks about this situation.

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He says that the court of federal claims and the government had it wrong.

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Could you explain this a little bit for me?

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What, what we're talking about exactly here?

[00:16:25] Speaker 02:
Your honor, we're talking about an instance here where in response to a motion and emotion to compel situation, the government represented to the trial court no later than 2011.

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that the government had made an offer to, had been migrating its payment system, its payroll payment system to a new system that would better account for these lump sum payouts upon separation from federal service.

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And in doing so, the government discovered that some former VA employees had been improperly paid lump sums and therefore the government sought class council's agreement to be able to pay those plaintiffs and be able to remove them from the class.

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Were those the people here in this case?

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I'm not aware of that specifically, Your Honor.

[00:17:16] Speaker 02:
The class council may be able to comment on that, but I do not think so.

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So that was a situation where the government had offered the class council to pay certain plaintiffs and thereby removing their involvement in the case and allowing them to be paid approximately a decade sooner than they ultimately received payment in the case.

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And we articulated this to the trial court at length in our brief in response to the EJA application.

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Mr. Lechner, the class counsel in reply, said nothing about this before the trial court, including at oral arguments, said nothing about this to the trial court to attempt to rebut it.

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In assessing the veracity of this representation, the trial court credited the fact that the

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class counsel did not even attempt to rebut this assertion before the trial court.

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In their opening brief additionally before this court, the class counsel also has not attempted to rebut this situation as the pleadings make clear before the trial court.

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Only in reply, as Your Honor noted, do they attempt to, I guess, undermine this assertion.

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However, even that attempt at undermining this assertion at that point in the litigation

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is unavailing in that they continue to agree that the United States did attempt to pay certain plaintiffs along the way throughout the litigation, thereby evidencing a receptiveness, the statutory obligation to properly calculate and pay these plumb sums.

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However, class counsel in their reply brief before this court simply disagrees with the magnitude of that attempted payment.

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in that, asserting that it wasn't paying enough of the employees.

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And the fact of the matter is that the reluctance in paying the few that were discussed in 2011, no later than 2011, could have had a chilling effect on additional payments throughout the litigation that further bolster the substantially justified position of the government in the case.

[00:19:23] Speaker 03:
You're saying, Mr. Bird, that some, there was some part

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there were some number of VA employees who were presented with this offer.

[00:19:33] Speaker 03:
Is that what you're saying?

[00:19:36] Speaker 02:
The presentation of the offer was to class council, Your Honor, and there was a particular number of employees.

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And at that point, I do not believe it was a large number of employees, but this was as the government was migrating its payment system and attempting to improve its payment processes.

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These were employees with respect to whom an error had been detected.

[00:20:01] Speaker 02:
This is correct.

[00:20:02] Speaker 03:
OK.

[00:20:02] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:20:07] Speaker 02:
And Your Honor, if there are no further questions, I can conclude as far as.

[00:20:13] Speaker 00:
So this is Judge Stoll.

[00:20:14] Speaker 00:
I do want to ask you one question.

[00:20:16] Speaker 00:
I've looked at cases like two that talk about how when you're looking at what

[00:20:23] Speaker 00:
What the government has to have substantially justified is the overall position of the government, the entirety of the government's conduct.

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Opposing counsel is arguing on appeal that the

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court below aired because it didn't look at the government's overall position and the entirety of the government's conduct and instead looked at a series of peripheral wins.

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How do you respond to that?

[00:20:54] Speaker 00:
Is it mostly with the idea that you had this presentation of an offer to class counsel to a number of VA employees or is it that there's no legal requirement that you look at a singular issue even if it's the biggest issue in the case?

[00:21:09] Speaker 02:
Well, Your Honor, in this case, the trial court did look at the entirety of the government's conduct.

[00:21:16] Speaker 02:
The pre-litigation conduct, the trial court credited there what we discussed previously with the presentation of an offer to pay certain employees removing them from the class.

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Additionally, attempting to improve the payment processes that the agency had to better account for and track and pay these lump sum payments.

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That was pre-litigation conduct.

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Additionally,

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The trial court also took into account a statement that plaintiffs had made before the court that the errors in these lump sum payments were fairly attributable to an innocent mistake of an extraordinarily large governmental institution.

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And that was a quote from an appellant or plaintiffs then before the trial court in their EJA application.

[00:22:04] Speaker 02:
Additionally, the trial court understood based on an affidavit that appellants

[00:22:09] Speaker 02:
had attached to each application that it had always been the policy of the VA to promptly correct lump sum payment errors upon their discovery.

[00:22:19] Speaker 02:
And then in the litigation posture of the government, there was the string of successes that we detail in our brief, and those only buttressed the fact that the United States' overall position in the litigation was substantially justified.

[00:22:35] Speaker 02:
Ultimately, in the opening brief of appellants before this court, they contend only that it was error for the trial court to conclude that our overall position was substantially justified when we did not contest the liability on the singular issue upon which appellants prevailed in the case.

[00:22:54] Speaker 02:
And there, we had articulated to the trial court no later than 2013 in response to the plaintiff's first partial motion for summary judgment,

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that we agreed with that entitlement and were attempting to settle that entitlement.

[00:23:12] Speaker 02:
Plaint appellants before this court cite to a case sabo from the Court of Federal Claims in 2016.

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That case actually supports the position that the government's decision to settle those entitlements upon which plaintiff's appellant ultimately prevailed was substantially justified as being consistent with the lump sum payment statute and the facts at the time.

[00:23:35] Speaker 00:
Can I ask you one more question about this?

[00:23:37] Speaker 00:
Because I want to make sure that it's nice to answer it.

[00:23:40] Speaker 00:
Yes.

[00:23:40] Speaker 00:
Which is, what about the fact that the parties, you know, there was a settlement in Archuleta involving this, what I think to be this primary issue about the colas and locality increases.

[00:23:53] Speaker 00:
All the other agencies settled on that issue and VA did not.

[00:23:58] Speaker 00:
Does that support the argument that the government's position wasn't substantially justified?

[00:24:07] Speaker 02:
No, Your Honor, because the government in this case, as this Court is aware from the first time that this case was before this Court, I believe it was before the same panel as we have today, several of the issues that were litigated in the AFI phase of this action deal specifically with statutes that are Title 38 statutes that are particularly applied to the VA.

[00:24:34] Speaker 02:
And those issues underscore the reasonableness of continuing to litigate the matter as it was presented in AFI, especially given the multiple successes that the government had even in this phase of the litigation.

[00:24:52] Speaker 04:
Okay, counsel, you're out of time.

[00:24:54] Speaker 02:
Thank you, your honor.

[00:24:55] Speaker 02:
And with that, we respectfully request that the court affirm the decision of the trial court.

[00:24:59] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:24:59] Speaker 04:
Thank you.

[00:25:01] Speaker 04:
Mr. Lector.

[00:25:03] Speaker 04:
How much time does Mr. Lechner have?

[00:25:08] Speaker 04:
Judge Raina, he has just under eight minutes of rebuttal.

[00:25:12] Speaker 04:
Okay.

[00:25:13] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:25:14] Speaker 04:
Okay, Mr. Lechner.

[00:25:15] Speaker 04:
And, you know, you're limited to the statements that you made on your direct argument.

[00:25:20] Speaker 04:
So you have eight minutes.

[00:25:29] Speaker 03:
Sir, are you on?

[00:25:33] Speaker 03:
The government is raising an incident involving 28 employees, I believe, who were paid by the agency in an era while the case was pending years ago.

[00:25:52] Speaker 03:
This case involves 3,231 people.

[00:25:58] Speaker 03:
It was a little minor incident that then the government was trying to say, okay, therefore we should stop the whole case or something of that nature.

[00:26:13] Speaker 03:
But it was only 28 people.

[00:26:16] Speaker 03:
Judge Patricia Campbell Smith was,

[00:26:21] Speaker 03:
the trial court for almost 10 years.

[00:26:25] Speaker 03:
Senior Judge Lauren Smith was trial court for 10 full years.

[00:26:34] Speaker 03:
This trial court judge has only had one telephone conference between counsel as his total exposure to the issues in this case.

[00:26:46] Speaker 03:
The incidents that Mr. Byrd is talking about just have absolutely no application.

[00:26:54] Speaker 03:
If you'll notice, Judge Campbell Smith, who was at trial court for years during that period, never makes any reference to it.

[00:27:03] Speaker 03:
This is Judge Stowell.

[00:27:05] Speaker 03:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:27:06] Speaker 00:
I understand your point.

[00:27:07] Speaker 00:
You're saying that this judge didn't have a lot of time working on the case.

[00:27:13] Speaker 00:
But I still have to review.

[00:27:16] Speaker 00:
his determination of whether the government's position was substantially justified for an abuse of discretion, right?

[00:27:23] Speaker 03:
That's correct, Your Honor.

[00:27:26] Speaker 03:
And here's the telling point.

[00:27:29] Speaker 03:
For 17 years, 17 years involving this class in ethic, for 17 years, the VA did not pay its employees properly with respect to lump sum.

[00:27:44] Speaker 03:
Now, that is a very significant issue with respect to whether or not it was substantially justified.

[00:27:54] Speaker 03:
Moreover, the government actually argues that it never disputed that its employees were owed this money.

[00:28:04] Speaker 03:
And therefore, it was substantially justified.

[00:28:09] Speaker 03:
I don't understand that rationale.

[00:28:12] Speaker 03:
The substantially justified argument relates to whether or not the defenses, which the defendant put up during the case, were reasonable and rational.

[00:28:24] Speaker 03:
And while it lost, nonetheless, it was really making a good argument.

[00:28:29] Speaker 00:
So counsel, this is Judge Stoll again.

[00:28:31] Speaker 00:
So I have to review the decision made below by the Court of Federal Claims.

[00:28:37] Speaker 00:
And here the court denied the request for fees saying the government's position was substantially justified because of a series of wins.

[00:28:50] Speaker 00:
some other.

[00:28:51] Speaker 00:
So, but, you know, we've got Supreme Court precedents that says district courts are a better position than the court of appeals to make these determinations on whether the government is substantially justified and that I'm not supposed to reweigh the analysis and the weight

[00:29:08] Speaker 00:
that the Court of Federal Claims gives to the various factors and issues that it looks at when it's looking at the overall position to see whether it's substantially justified.

[00:29:18] Speaker 00:
So to a certain extent, I feel like my hands are really tied here.

[00:29:22] Speaker 00:
So where do you see the abuse of discretion?

[00:29:25] Speaker 00:
Do you know of any cases that say that the court's approach of relying on a series of wins, even though they're small, is incorrect?

[00:29:36] Speaker 03:
I believe there are any number of cases, Your Honor, and we've cited to them.

[00:29:42] Speaker 03:
The issue of small wins is in 2007, in one motion, Judge Smith gave certain benefit to the defendant.

[00:29:57] Speaker 03:
That's the string of victories.

[00:29:59] Speaker 03:
The string of victories was in one motion there.

[00:30:02] Speaker 03:
And then, of course, we lost the issue of interest, which is a peripheral.

[00:30:08] Speaker 00:
I'm familiar with the record, and I've also looked at the cases that you've cited.

[00:30:14] Speaker 00:
And I don't see anything that supports the idea that the framework that the Court of Federal Claims used here on determining whether the

[00:30:25] Speaker 00:
government's position was substantially justified was incorrect, that they weren't allowed to look at those series of wins or that, and so I'm, I really, could you identify, if you have something, some law in particular that you want to point out to me, I want to give you an opportunity to do so.

[00:30:40] Speaker 03:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:30:41] Speaker 03:
The new trial judge did not relate at all to the fact that the VA for 17 years, the agency

[00:30:52] Speaker 03:
Because in evaluating the issue as to whether they were substantially justified, the trial court must also look to the actions of the agency.

[00:31:04] Speaker 03:
That is absolutely clear in the case law.

[00:31:07] Speaker 03:
And this trial court ignored that.

[00:31:10] Speaker 03:
For 17 years, the VA did not treat these employees correctly.

[00:31:15] Speaker 03:
And that is a prime issue that the trial court should have evaluated.

[00:31:21] Speaker 03:
and to say, okay, well, for 17 years they did it wrong but they were substantially justified when they obviously would not.

[00:31:31] Speaker 03:
I mean, the law was so clear that the first 17 agencies settled in Archuleta without even filing an answer.

[00:31:42] Speaker 03:
I've never really encountered a case in the claims court in which a settlement was affected

[00:31:50] Speaker 03:
without even filing an answer.

[00:31:52] Speaker 03:
I mean, it was so clear right from the start.

[00:31:55] Speaker 03:
And yet, the trial court did not consider at all the fact that for 17 years, the agency refused to pay its employees properly.

[00:32:06] Speaker 03:
And that is a reviewable issue.

[00:32:11] Speaker 03:
May I also make a reference to the fact that this is allegedly an innocent mistake.

[00:32:19] Speaker 03:
What I said in my brief very cordially was perhaps back in 1993, it was an innocent mistake.

[00:32:29] Speaker 03:
But 17 other agencies sued in 1999.

[00:32:35] Speaker 03:
And the VA certainly knew at that point that they had made a horrendous mistake involving more than 20,000 employees.

[00:32:47] Speaker 03:
And it was settled right away.

[00:32:49] Speaker 03:
That's in 1999, but they continue to pay him wrong until 2010.

[00:32:54] Speaker 00:
Council, this is Judge Stoll again.

[00:32:56] Speaker 00:
Hi.

[00:32:56] Speaker 00:
Yes, you're up.

[00:32:57] Speaker 00:
I wanted to ask you, I'm looking at the court's opinion at pages A, 11 through 12 of the record.

[00:33:06] Speaker 00:
And there is some discussion about this.

[00:33:08] Speaker 00:
It says, Gerard is briefing the class's primary complaints about the position of the United States and focused on the delay in obtaining relief for class members.

[00:33:18] Speaker 00:
And so one of the things, then it says, you know, talks about the torpid pace of litigation and about how there were the parties jointly agreed or acquiesced to numerous enlargements of time in the case and that the court sees no reason why agreed upon delays should prejudice the United States.

[00:33:38] Speaker 00:
How do you respond to that?

[00:33:39] Speaker 00:
Because that must account for at least some of that.

[00:33:44] Speaker 03:
I know you're on it.

[00:33:45] Speaker 03:
That's entirely a different issue.

[00:33:47] Speaker 00:
That's not part of the 17 years at all?

[00:33:49] Speaker 00:
Sorry, please let me ask.

[00:33:51] Speaker 03:
No, that doesn't refer to the 17 years at all.

[00:33:54] Speaker 03:
What that refers to is, for some reason, this judge took issue with the fact that the government asked for 25 continuances during the case, and plaintiffs asked for eight.

[00:34:08] Speaker 03:
And so I had complained that the whole case as a whole had taken 21 years

[00:34:16] Speaker 03:
Imagine 21 years when everybody knew that the people were being unpaid, that they weren't being paid correctly, all the way back into 1993.

[00:34:30] Speaker 03:
And for some reason, the new trial judge said that the plaintiffs were responsible for the government taking 25 continuances.

[00:34:42] Speaker 03:
And that had nothing to do with the fact

[00:34:44] Speaker 03:
Your Honor, if you read those sections very carefully, nothing to do with the fact that the VA did not pay these people properly from 1993 to 2010, even though it settled with 17 of the largest agencies from 1999 to 2006.

[00:35:05] Speaker 03:
Even after that settlement.

[00:35:08] Speaker 04:
Okay, Mr. Electron, you're out of time.

[00:35:11] Speaker 04:
Yes, thank you very much, Your Honor.

[00:35:14] Speaker 04:
Okay, thank you.

[00:35:15] Speaker 04:
We thank the parties for their arguments, and this case is now taken under submission.