Submission at Senate Inquiry into White Collar Witness Support Psych

8/19/2019 Submission at Senate Inquiry into White Collar Witness Support Psych

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Senate Inquiry -Penalties for White Collar Crimes 2016

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Witness Support Services, Box 444 Clements California

Dear Senate Inquiry into

Penaties for White Collar Crimes.

Dear Dr Darmody.

We ask that you impose penalties for cover ups and the psych warfare tactics on witnesses like

victims of bank crimes "as seen on Four Corners". The Defer Delay Deny tactics are devastating

on victims. The same tactical theme arises in the use by predators and their gun4hire

psychiatrists against victims of Institutional Abuse for example. One shocking tale was in the

newspapers.. Kumar scared the victims with the Rules and he played predatory games as the

rule maker. Dr Rogers said that when one woman spoke of being assaulted, Kumar told Yooralla

management she had insulted him for a comment he had made. The resident was later told by

management her behaviour had been inappropriate and the allegation of sexual assault had

been unsubstantiated, the court heard. After a long time, Kumar pleaded guilty to eight charges

of rape, two of sexually penetrating a person with cognitive impairment and single counts of

performing an indecent act on a person with cognitive impairment and indecent assault. Dr

Rogers said she was unaware of more serious examples of carers sexually assaulting disabled

people. One woman said she had been so sick after the assaults that she had been admitted to

hospital five times.

She had also been devastated to learn there were other victims and she longed to return to the

life she once lived. "At least I can get out of here with a clean conscience. You, monster, you

have to live with it. I will never forgive what you have done," she said in a statement read to


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court by a supporter.

The disabled man used a speech-generating device to tell Judge Felicity Hampel how he felt

betrayed, upset and angry at what Kumar had done. After being thanked by the judge for his

words, the man blew a kiss to his friend. Fairfax Media reported last year that Yooralla,

Victoria's largest non-government disability service, failed to inform some parents of its

residents that Kumar had been charged with rape until months later, when detectives sought to

question some residents. Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/yooralla-rapist-

preyed-on-disabled-women-20131106-2x1h6.html#ixzz44AOO1sCh

We see the same tactics used against farmers, homeowners, insurance policy holders, etc.

We also refer to tactics against lawyers David Forster at "Whistleblower Lawyer of Frankston"

and James Johnson, Lawyer and Independent Candidate for Lalor when Julie Gillard held the

Seat. Anything exculpatory was hidden, and that is torture.

We run whistleblower programs and we're sick and tired of the Legal Services Board's

predatory bullying and its bignoting.

Please assess your national legal ethic board staff's boastful fantasy stories about shipping

containers, hit contracts and FBI teams that jump out of the bushes in cases about Reserve

Bank documents and economics.

Who believes that Reserve Bank documents could possible end up in New York litigationbetween the US DoJ and Amex, Visa, Mastercard, Citi and dozens of global banks? Banks would

never collude with lawyers, would they? Court findings materialised out of thin air by

coincoindence of course. The Legal Board wouldn’t peeve off Colombians.

Who believes The Age and Police Operation Purana? No one would dare steal a Colombian

shipping container from Mick Gatto's own dock, would they. The LSBC's mafia stories came to

be by coincidence, of course.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/yooralla-rapist-preyed-on-disabled-women-20131106-2x1h6.html#ixzz44AOO1sChhttp://www.theage.com.au/victoria/yooralla-rapist-preyed-on-disabled-women-20131106-2x1h6.html#ixzz44AOO1sChhttp://www.theage.com.au/victoria/yooralla-rapist-preyed-on-disabled-women-20131106-2x1h6.html#ixzz44AOO1sChhttp://www.theage.com.au/victoria/yooralla-rapist-preyed-on-disabled-women-20131106-2x1h6.html#ixzz44AOO1sChhttp://www.theage.com.au/victoria/yooralla-rapist-preyed-on-disabled-women-20131106-2x1h6.html#ixzz44AOO1sChhttp://www.theage.com.au/victoria/yooralla-rapist-preyed-on-disabled-women-20131106-2x1h6.html#ixzz44AOO1sCh


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Their stories about the FBI TaskForce Drawl, arrests at airports of bank executives, and Gatto's

disappearing shipping containers are delusional nonsense, fanciful and grandiose. Take for

example their whistleblowing boastful stories as summarised at Parliament by one of many

people before the LSBC's fantastic stories materialised with the accuracy of the Oracle of

Delphi. Really, why would a bank offer $1,000,000 as a payoff to anyone who took the LSBC's

fairytales to the FBI instead of the world famous Knox Police Station? The Police at Knox are

famous across the galaxy for busting pedo rings, human traffickers, bankers and the mafia, just

ask anyone at StarFleet. The FBI probably had a great chuckle.


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The FBI don't arrest people at Sydney Airport based on tip offs from guffawing lawyers at 555 Bourke

Street, surely? Who believes Channel 7 News anyway? ABC TV aren't any better.


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Who believes the Daily Telegraph?


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Who believes that gutter rag called the Fin Review?

Who believes Rural Action Group and anti-pedophile campaigners?


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Anti-pedo hunters wouldn't know a pedophile ring if they fell over them.

No one believes pub talk up there in Charleville Qld.


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Who'd believe these laws will scare anyone in Collins Street?


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"Ace Foundation"? Lol, that must be a made up name in the bribery case.

Computer Science Services can't possibly be suing anyone because of bribery. This is a made up court

case with an imaginary demand for an imaginary $260,000,000. The Legal Services Board's blabbing

can't possibly lead to arrests and cases, can it?


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Your world famous fantabulous staff amazing boasts about secret FBI/NSW Cybercrime

TaskForce Drawl and stories about Colombian shipping containers that vanished from Gatto's

wharf raises concerns with the mental health of your staff. Alternatively, their boastful

betrayals of confidences also demonstrates that they regard themselves as untouchable and

above the law. They must live in a fantasy world if they think shipping containers will vanish.


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Drug squads don't use undercover agents, do they. The Legal Services Board couldn't possibly tip off

anyone, would they.

Their boasts about super secret FBI operations could not possibly be true. After all, lawyers

wouldn't run scam litigation support firms, use cocaine, marry a drug baron, and get caught

after the legal services board snortled and guffawed at silly stories about undercover

operations.


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3,400,000 shops totally walked away from $2.2 billion of class action damages because lawyers

colluded? No one noticed that Australian RBA documents were misrepresented to the stock

market and the regulators and all the lawyers? Yeah, sure. More fantasy from the Legal Services

Board's super stupendous lawyers who know everything.

But gosh, lawyers were caught. The unethical ethics, the cocaine, the Reserve Bank Info that

Fos thought old people couldn't get. All true. The drug trafficking, the scam 'litigation support

firms' that funnelled RBA Info between crims and lawyers, all true. The confidential informants,

the "FBI jumping out of the bushes", all came true. The ex parte warrants for raids, the

confessions, the admissions by lawyers like Friedman, the jail sentences, all came true. So why

is the Victorian Privacy Commission asking witnesses to see the Legal Services Board about

compensation of only $100,000 each.

After all, the crims and the SEC-registered Whistleblowers reckon the VLSBC is probably

covering up an unethical conflict of interest.


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Mr Target and Mr 7-11 won't be upset will they?

Judge Garaufis was wrong, wasn't he?

Open Letter Responding to Judge Garaufis's Aug. 4 Opinion

Re: Open Letter Responding to Judge Garaufis’s August 4, 2015 Opinion in In re American

Express Anti-Steering Rules Antitrust Litig., 11-MD-2221 (E.D.N.Y.)

I am writing this letter, among other reasons, for the benefit of the merchant class members

who I have represented over the past 12 years in litigation against American Express – the

hundreds I have met, the millions I have not, and the handful who have called asking for an

explanation of the August 4, 2015 memorandum opinion and order in the above-referenced

case rejecting the proposed class action settlement (the “Opinion”).


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In the Opinion, District Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis rejected a proposed settlement that would

have provided 3.4 million U.S. merchants the right – for the first time ever in this country – to

use payment card surcharges (including so-called “differential surcharges” as I will explain

below) to recoup onerous swipe fees and introduce price competition among credit card

networks for merchant services. He rejected the settlement notwithstanding the fact that 99%

of U.S. merchants have no other option for relief, insofar as the arbitration clauses in their

merchant agreements – upheld by the Supreme Court in Italian Colors – mandate that they may

not seek market-wide rules changes and may only seek one-on-one relief against Amex in costly

arbitrations.[1] These considerations, however, did not figure into the August 4 decision because

Judge Garaufis did not reject the settlement on its merits. Instead, he found my personal

conduct so appalling that he felt compelled to scrap the settlement, whatever its merits.

So what was that conduct really? And did it warrant scrapping a deal that would have provided

historic benefits for merchants – a deal that may well never be pieced back together? I think

merchants and others have a genuine interest in getting answers.

INTRODUCTION

I set out 12 years ago to work for small business owners who felt abused by the big credit card

companies and banks. Over the years, I’ve probably devoted 90% of my practice to their cause

of reforming the notoriously broken markets for payment card acceptance in the United States.

On their behalf, I developed and launched antitrust suits to obtain for merchants the right to use

so-called “surcharges” and “steering” to reduce their acceptance costs and pry open the card

markets to competition – efforts that were joined years later by larger merchants and, in part,

the DOJ.[2]

It has taken a decade of non-stop litigation, but the results have been stunning – the kind of

structural reform that calls to mind the original point of class action lawsuits and the injunctive

sweep of the antitrust laws. The injunctive relief in the MDL 1720 settlement forced Visa and

MasterCard to rescind their longstanding and much-coveted No-Surcharge Rules. Discover


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rescinded its No-Surcharge Rule too. And Amex, in a proposed settlement in In re American

Express Antitrust Anti-Steering Rules Antitrust Litig., 11-MD-2221 (“In re Amex ASR”), agreed to

modify its anti-surcharging rules in a way that would have benefited all U.S. merchants, by

allowing them to: (i) surcharge all credit cards and drive traffic to debit cards, which are

extremely cheap for merchants, and/or (ii) surcharge some credit card brands while accepting

other credit card brands on an effectively surcharge-free basis, as I will explain below. See

generally, In re Amex ASR, Dkt. 585.

We also took on state laws that banned the use of credit card surcharges. Federal judges in

California and New York have now struck down those states’ anti -surcharging laws as

unconstitutional, in response to First Amendment challenges that I brought with constitutionalexpert Deepak Gupta, who I engaged with the blessing of the MDL 1720 Lead Counsel Group.

And though we lost similar challenges in Texas and Florida – and will likely win some and lose

some at the appellate level – we expect to win these commercial speech cases before the U.S.

Supreme Court. Moreover, and partly because of our success in the constitutional litigation, not

one state legislature has enacted a new anti-surcharging law in the wake of the settlement,

although more than 20 bills were introduced around the country. As part of these successful

efforts to repel anti-surcharge legislation, I personally met with legislators in numerous states.

Nonetheless, these groundbreaking settlements – and my role in particular – have come under

attack for reasons relating to my relationship with Keila Ravelo. Ravelo was a friend of mine and

my wife’s for 20-plus years. She was a Willkie Farr partner who, it turns out, was engaged in a

long-running criminal scheme to defraud her client, MasterCard, Inc., out of millions of dollars.

Her criminal activities set in motion a torrent of truly horrible consequences. For my family, and

many other people, it has been a terrible, reality-quaking shock. But there are other costs as

well. And among those costs are the interests of some 3.4 million Amex-accepting merchants.

As I said, merchants need and deserve an explanation. I will begin by explaining why it is that I

have not had an opportunity before now to provide one.


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1. Opportunity to be Heard

After Keila Ravelo was arrested for defrauding her client MasterCard out of millions of dollars,

her files were searched and her employer Willkie Farr discovered extensive personal and

professional correspondence with me. The two of us had worked both with and against each

other a great deal over the years, and our families were close. Ravelo had represented

MasterCard in the MDL 1720 class action, where I was a lawyer on behalf of the merchant

plaintiff class. And I was lead counsel in a parallel merchant class action against American

Express, which we often discussed. Both settlements were controversial and contested by

prominent objectors, and Willkie felt compelled to initiate a disclosure procedure under which

our communications – both personal and professional – were disclosed to those objectors andothers. Following Willkie’s lead, I cooperated in a court -supervised discovery process, as a result

of which more than 18,000 pages of emails and other documents were turned over by Willkie,

myself and others to the objectors in the Amex and MDL 1720 class actions.

Once that disclosure period was finished, Judge Garaufis directed class plaintiffs and the

objectors to submit simultaneous 10-page double-spaced briefs on the issue of how, if at all, the

Friedman-Ravelo communications should affect the court’s consideration of the proposed Amex

ASR settlement. The objectors submitted four such briefs, setting forth an elaborate conspiracytheory. Class plaintiffs’ simultaneous submission was dry and legal by contrast. My team did not

anticipate, and could not have fully anticipated, the distorted narrative that the objectors would

wring out of the 18,000-page record.

That same evening, before we and the last objectors had finished filing our respective briefs,

Judge Garaufis issued an Order. That Order – which was entirely unprompted and unexpected –

directed that neither we nor the objectors would be permitted to respond to each other’s filings.

And then, a few days later, Judge Garaufis ruled. He rejected the settlement, and with it theopportunity for 99% of U.S. merchants to obtain much-needed relief – very possibly forever (see

above at n. 1). And he did this without even addressing the merits. The Opinion was based solely

upon his perceptions of my misconduct – including my communications with Ravelo and

allegations that I sought to manipulate the settlement of both the MDL 1720 and Amex class

actions for self-gain or other illegitimate reasons.


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I’m still baffled. I do not understand why Judge Garaufis foreclosed me from responding to these

incredible allegations against me.[3] And I don’t understand how, without hearing from me and

without considering the merits of the proposed settlement, he could penalize 3.4 million U.S.

merchants. All I know for sure is that every material factual assumption or conclusion that

underlies the Opinion is false.

2. The Misrepresentations

To try and understand how the court could have gotten so much so wrong, I will walk through

some of the more consequential factual assertions of the Opinion. I will start with one that

seems (according to my informal canvass) to have stuck in many peoples’ minds, and that sets

me up as a truly bad actor.

a. Judge Garaufis Misrepresents The “Huge F’ing Number”

Judge Garaufis wrote that, on July 23, 2012, I emailed Ravelo regarding “settlement discussions

with American Express including the negotiation of attorneys fees.” (Op. at 29, emphasis

added). In the next sentence, he quoted my email to Ravelo: “Btw, phil [i.e., Amex counsel Philip

Korologos] sounded receptive. But on the issue of $ he said it was a ‘huge f’ing number’ that

made him ‘gag’ and could impede his client from moving like they otherwise might.” Id.

This is a very serious charge. Judge Garaufis asserts that I proposed a class settlement and

demanded, in the “negotiation of attorneys’ fees,” a “huge f’ing number” that made opposingcounsel “gag” to the point of “imped[ing]” a deal.

But the Opinion misrepresents the facts. The “huge f’ing number” that made Amex counsel


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“gag” was a $2.2 billion demand for class damages. There was no talk of fees at all. We

persisted in demanding class damages right up until the Supreme Court took that option off the

table in its June 2013 Italian Colors decision, when it upheld Amex’s class action waivers. Judge

Garaufis knew this well. A June 2013 PowerPoint that he discusses at length, Op. 40-41, is

explicit that we had “started at $2.2 B” and “after cert was

granted” in Italian Colors, we “moved to $1.3 B.” It is also clear fromthat same presentation that, as of June 2013, attorneys’ fees had never been discussed at all;

instead, we had been pursuing a damages settlement, where fees would of course come out of

the common damages fund. Moreover, the July 23, 2012 email recites that Phil asked if my

demand number included the damages demanded by the group of opt-out merchant plaintiffsled by attorney Richard Arnold: “Then later [Phil] said, ‘back to that # for a sec ... does it include

richard?’

I can’t say what Judge Garaufis was thinking in leveling this serious and false charge against me.

Clearly, the objectors goaded the judge to latch onto the familiar narrative of a plaintiffs’ class

action lawyer selling out his clients’ interests. Their intent, in general, was to make him see red.

So for example, one of the objectors wrote in its brief addressing the import of the Friedman-

Ravelo communications: “Since Ms. Ravelo has been charged criminally and both she and Mr.Friedman have criminal attorneys representing them, the ability to examine this issue is

unlikely.” Dkt. 581-1 at 7. This statement was baseless – but I think it and others were quite

effective in provoking the court.[4]

b. Judge Garaufis Misrepresents The “Fantasy Resolution”

One paragraph of necessary background here: The MDL 1720 settlement contained a provision

known as the “Level Playing Field” or “LPF”. The Level Playing Field clause provided (to

oversimplify a bit) that a merchant may not surcharge Visa or MasterCard transactions unless it

also surcharges Amex transactions – at least until Amex changes its rules. The Level Playing

Field was designed by mediators to solve a paralyzing first mover problem. In the absence of the


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LPF clause, a network that agreed to shed its anticompetitive rules (e.g., Visa) would be at a

disadvantage vis-à-vis a network (e.g., Amex) which retained its anticompetitive rules. On that

scenario, merchants would be free to surcharge Visa transactions but not Amex transactions.

Visa would be loath to give up its rules under such circumstances.

Against that backdrop, Judge Garaufis made much of an email that I wrote to Ravelo on

November 29, 2011. Op. at 35. I include this passage in full because the issues it raises are

repeated throughout the Opinion:

In one noteworthy email from November 2011, Friedman wrote that “Amex would be thrilled”by a 1720 MDL settlement with an LPF provision, because “Amex’s fantasy resolution of all this

litigation is a world where merchants are free to surcharge Amex cards but only if (i) the

merchant also surcharges [Visa/MasterCard] and (ii) surcharges [Visa/MasterCard] at the same

level,” and a 1720 MDL settlement with an LPF provision gets Amex “half -way home.” [Record

citations omitted]. This “fantasy resolution” for Amex is, of course, the resolution that Friedman

ultimately agreed to on behalf of all class members.

This passage is deeply disingenuous. I will start with what the judge got right. I did believe inNovember 2011 that “Amex would be thrilled” with a Visa/MasterCard deal that set a precedent

for saying, in essence, “if you surcharge us you have to surcharge our competitors at the same

rate.” The alternative confronting Amex was an injunction, which we fully expected to obtain in

our Amex ASR class action before Italian Colors, allowing market-wide unfettered “differential

surcharging” – meaning that merchants would be free to surcharge Amex cards only, to the

exclusion of competitors’ cards, or to surcharge Amex cards at a higher level than other cards.

Compared to this alternative, the resolution I outlined in the email would indeed be “Amex’s

fantasy resolution.”

But in that same email, in a portion that Judge Garaufis chose not to quote in the text of his

Opinion, I emphasized that such a resolution would be totally unacceptable to my team. I wrote

that we “will argue that any such limitation is itself anticompetitive – a way to protect each


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network from the competitive dilemma of whether to drop rates in order to prevent its card

from being differentially surcharged.” Op. at 35 n. 42.

Here, as elsewhere, the Opinion is shockingly misleading. First, I was clear and emphatic that we

w ould not agree to Amex’s fantasy resolution – which is quite the opposite of what Judge

Garaufis is asserting in the passage above. The court conjectures that I was working with Ravelo

to help deliver Amex’s fantasy resolution, while the email shows me tel ling her we would not

agree to it. Other evidence shows this as well.[5]

Second, the email was written one and one-half years before the Supreme Court’s Italian Colorsdecision upholding Amex’s class waivers. Italian Colors fundamentally altered the settl ement

calculus – and not just because it drove the class damages demand from $2.2 billion down to

zero. Italian Colors rendered it impossible for us (in the estimation of all the objectors, at any

rate) to obtain a market-wide injunction forcing Amex to allow differential surcharging.

Judge Garaufis assumes that I was trying to get Amex “half -way home” to its “fantasy

resolution” during MDL 1720 negotiations in 2011-2012. But this makes no sense. Until the

Court’s June 2013 Italian Colors decision, as numerous documents show, we never consideredany resolution shy of unfettered differential surcharging. And it’s obvious we could not have

defended such a deal but for Italian Colors. To credit Judge Garaufis’s theory, one would have to

believe that I only pretended to seek differential surcharging before Italian Colors, and that I

took a dive at the Supreme Court (where we hired Paul Clement and persuaded the Solicitor

General to support our side). Italian Colors is a very large elephant in a very small room – and

somehow Judge Garaufis managed to keep his eyes entirely averted.

And third, Judge Garaufis is flatly wrong when he writes: “This ‘fantasy resolution’ for Amex is,

of course, the resolution that Friedman ultimately agreed to on behalf of all class members.”

This is a blatant and highly material misrepresentation of the proposed settlement terms, and it

permeates the Opinion. So I will treat it separately here.


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c. Judge Garaufis Repeatedly Misrepresents The Settlement Terms

The settlement we ultimately reached in Amex ASR was a far cry from the “fantasy resolution”

Amex sought.

Some background is necessary here. The DOJ, having been lobbied by me and my team, sued

Amex seeking to rescind, among other things, Amex’s rule preventing merchants from offering

consumers a discount for using another card brand. So for example, under Amex’s No-Discount

Rule, a merchant was barred from saying “2% off if you use Visa.” While we had also challenged

the No-Discount Rule, we agreed in the settlement that the class would leave this issue to theDOJ trial. If DOJ were to win, the No-Discount Rule would be rescinded. If DOJ were to lose, my

team reasoned, then we would never have won this point anyway.

The parties further agreed, in the settlement, that merchants could now impose surcharges on

Amex transactions. To do so, the merchant would be required to also impose surcharges on all

other credit cards it accepts, and to do so at the same level – a requirement referred to as

“parity.” But there was one critical exception to the parity surcharging requirement: if DOJ were

to win its trial before Judge Garaufis, then the merchant would be free to surcharge Amex,without surcharging a competitor brand, by the simple expedient of applying a surcharge-

offsetting discount to transactions on the competitor brand. The merchant could apply the

surcharge-offsetting discount right at the point-of-sale, where the swiper or terminal could be

programmed to cancel out the surcharge on whatever brand the merchant selects. Or, a

competitor brand (e.g., Discover or Visa) could just remove the surcharge amount from the

cardholder’s monthly statement. Either way, the consumer experience is simple: Amex cards are

surcharged, and the competitor cards (e.g., Discover or Visa) are not.

In other words, the relief that we negotiated (misleadingly referred to as “parity surcharging”)

when combined with the DOJ No-Discount Rule relief, would have enabled merchants to practice

“differential surcharging” -- i.e., to impose surcharges on one brand but not another, or to

surcharge multiple brands at different price points. All this was explicitly bargained for in the


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settlement agreement, subject to the limitation that the merchant may not advertise the off-

setting discount at or on the cash register. But the merchant would be free to advertise its policy

online, on TV, at the store entrance, on in-store displays or in any other way whatsoever.

At the September 2014 final approval hearing on the Amex settlement, I explained at length

how, if DOJ were to win its bench trial, the DOJ and class relief would interact to permit this

potent form of differential surcharging. And then after DOJ did win, and after the remedies

ruling, my team devoted an entire brief to this issue, and described the many procompetitive

ways that merchants can make use of this powerful new tool. The brief is publicly available, Dkt.

585, along with accompanying graphics including mock advertisements.

And yet, despite our sustained focus on the settlement’s ability to deliver potent differential

surcharging tools to merchants, Judge Garaufis has completely ignored this critical feature of

the relief and has persisted in mischaracterizing the proposed settlement as a pure parity deal.

“[O]f course,” he wrote, “Friedman ultimately agreed to” Amex’s “fantasy resolution” of a pure

parity requirement. Op. at 29. Judge Garaufis never provides any reason for persisting in this

mischaracterization. He just writes that “of course” we delivered a pure parity deal . But this is a

total falsehood – and one that is utterly indispensable to the smear that the deal somehow

“smacks of collusion.” Op. at 41.[6]

d. Judge Garaufis Misrepresents My Pre-MDL 1720 Settlement Communications With Ravelo

The Opinion makes much of my communications with Ravelo prior to the MDL 1720 settlement,

when my clients’ interests were adverse to her clients’ interests.[7] But throughout this period,

whatever Judge Garaufis may think, I did treat Ravelo as an adversary. Judge Garaufis and I

may have different conceptions of appropriate adversary relations, but I define the concept

entirely by the interests of the clients. I am not aware of any rules for how adversaries should

communicate, the appropriate tenor for their emails, how much they can socialize and gossip, or

whether their families may take vacations or consider making investments together, or lend

each other money. What matters to me is acting in the best interests of the client.


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On that basis, I stand by each and every one of the emails and memos cited by Judge Garaufis

during the pre-settlement period. I can readily identify the valid tactical or strategic reason

behind each pre-settlement communication. In fact, I have done that, in considerable detail, in

the declaration that I filed under seal in MDL 1720. Dkt. 6582. I am not at liberty to go into

those details here. But I can generally relate that I worked to help forge approvable deals in

cases with multiple players and agendas, and significant mistrust among banks and networks.

This work entailed no shortage of sidebars, and it required relationships of trust between

individual lawyers in opposing camps. It entailed a great deal of temperature-taking and idea-

floating.

My communications with Ravelo – my adversary – furthered precisely those ends. And the Level

Playing Field requirement compelled the parties to evaluate how various possible resolutions of

Amex’s rules might interact with the MDL 1720 relief. [8] Accordingly, much of my temperature-

taking and idea-floating communications with opposing counsel (including but not limited to

Ravelo) addressed potential reforms of all networks’ rules. It would have been negligent not to

have those conversations. And yet, to Judge Garaufis, these communications are evidence of

grave wrongdoing – and, indeed, they furnish the primary basis for his rejection of the proposed

settlement. See Op. at 28.

3. Protective Order Violations

In the Opinion, Judge Garaufis identified seven documents that I sent Ravelo in violation of

American Express case protective orders. Op. at 24-25. Every one of the seven that the court

identified were sent after her client MasterCard had agreed to the MDL 1720 settlement -- after

the settlement agreement had been filed, after our clients were no longer adverse to one

another and, by definition, after the documents could have influenced the settlement. Nor do

any of the objectors in the Amex ASR case point to any alleged protective order violations during

the run-up to the MDL 1720 settlement. Not one.[9]


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I do not deny – and in fact regret, as discussed below – that I violated an Order of the court. But

the violation was inconsequential and technical. I say “inconsequential” because Ravelo agreed

to and did maintain all of our communications in the utmost confidence. When I spoke with

Keila I knew to a certainty that I was not speaking with MasterCard or Willkie or anyone else.

Whatever other trusts she may have violated, she never violated that trust: she was a vault –

and she reinforced that by asking me to send sensitive communications to her Gmail account,

lest her colleagues inadvertently happen upon our confidential emails. It is well documented,

moreover, that she never shared any of my Amex-related communications with anyone.[10] See

MDL 1720 Dkt. 6418 at 2; Amex ASR Dkt. 574.

And I say the violations were “technical” because the applicable orders allowed me to sharehighly confidential information – without Amex’s prior approval – with any “attorney” who is a

“participant in the payments industry” on the “legal and regulatory proceedings” side of the

business (as opposed to, say, the business strategy side), and who I have “informally consulted”

or engaged for purposes of the Amex litigation, provided that the attorney-consultant agrees in

writing to keep the information confidential. My technical violation, such as it is, lies in not

having obtained the confidentiality acknowledgement in writing. And the technical or

administrative nature of the violation is underscored by the fact that the Amex ASR case and the

Visa and MasterCard cases all originated together. See, e.g., MDL 1720 Dkt. 14. If they had

never been separated (which we agreed to, purely for convenience sake), but had remainedunder one MDL number (as the cases against other competitors including Visa, MasterCard and

most top issuers did) then all outside counsel would have had access to all parties’ documents,

subject to the protective order. Just as Visa lawyers were allowed to see the competitor

MasterCard’s documents, and vice versa, and same for the bank issuers, it would have violated

nothing to share with these confidentiality-bound lawyers Amex documents.

As for the reasons for sharing information, the answer is obvious. To help the case. Ravelo was

very helpful to me – and by extension my clients – on a host of issues. In the years following theMDL 1720 settlement, I consulted Ravelo regarding the settlement process, the approval

process and possible individual merchant arbitrations, among other things. Judge Garaufis is

incredulous that I could have looked to Ravelo to help advance the interests of class members.

But I do not see why. At the time of the MDL 1720 settlement, she had 15 years of experience on

the defense side in payment card antitrust litigation. She brought a deep and unique


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understanding of how the GCs of large payment card networks think. And she could be relied on

to maintain all of our discussions in confidence.

For the most part, I sent Ravelo materials to get her best-educated advice and comments. Thus,

in sending her an under-seal brief raising issues with which she had particular experience (one of

the seven documents identified by Judge Garaufis), my cover email read: “so tell me how is this

likely to be received by in-house lawyers.” See Op. at 24 citing IMP Ex. 15. But sometimes, I also

sent her materials just by way of showing off, e.g., by sending along a supposedly ingenuous

argument I made, or an interesting graphic I had developed, or – to my mortification, looking at

it now – a report showing the Individual Merchant Plaintiffs’ expert agreed with me after

all.[11] Judge Garaufis focuses on some very unfortunate language that I used in these privateemail exchanges – phrases that reflect a sort of juvenile humor and provoke a horrible

perception. Most memorably, the phrase “Burn after reading!” is obviously incendiary – and it

understandably antagonized Judge Garaufis, who repeats it multiple times. I used this phrase

when I sent Ravelo the final termsheet we had reached with Amex in December 2013. It was a

puerile way to communicate excitement in providing her an advance look at the deal that we

would make public just a few days later.

Likewise, when I sent Richard Arnold (a deeply valued mentor for me, even as we sparred overthe Amex settlement) my team’s reply brief responding to his objections to the Amex

settlement, I offered my insincere condolences because his beloved Miami Heat had that day

lost LeBron James back to Cleveland. In forwarding to Ravelo, another Heat fan, I wrote

“Hahahaha” – referring to LeBron, and not to the fact that I forwarded to Ravelo the under-seal

version, as opposed to the redacted version, of our brief. Again, I understand the terrible

impression this created for Judge Garaufis, as reflected in the Opinion.

Finally, while I do think it is significant that any protective order breaches were inconsequentialand technical, I do not want that observation to obscure my regret for any and all violations of a

protective order. I genuinely respect that the litigation system cannot function without an

enforceable expectation of confidentiality, and that it requires adherence to the strict letter of

orders of the court.


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CONCLUSION

Judge Garaufis wrote that he “agrees that dissemination by plaintiffs’ counsel of defendants’

confidential information in violation of a protective order might not alone provide grounds for

rejection of a class action settlement.” Op. at 25, citing Reliable Money Order, Inc. v. McKnight

Sales Co., 704 F.3d 489 (7th Cir. 2013). And indeed, the law in this Circuit is even more clear that

claims regarding such violations do not warrant refusal to approve a class settlement or certify

a class.[12]

Nonetheless, Judge Garaufis went on to state, at page 36:

Whether Friedman exchanged confidential and/or privileged materials with Ravelo and

consulted with her regarding these actions for financial reasons, out of personal loyalty, due to

a misplaced sense that her advice would in fact benefit the merchant class and was not

improper, and/or for some other reason(s), is something this court cannot currently, and need

not, determine.

It was a terrible mistake for the Court not to inquire into the reason for my actions, once they

were called into question. It would take little effort to see that I did not communicate with

Ravelo “for financial reasons” or “out of personal loyalty” (whatever that means). Nor were my

communications with Ravelo driven by a “misplaced sense that her advice would in fact benefit

the merchant class.” I acted as I did based upon a verifiably accurate assessment that our

communications would benefit the merchant class.

If Judge Garaufis wants to argue that it does not matter whether my confidential consultation

with Ravelo helped the class – both as an adversary in helping to settle MDL 1720, and then

later as a trusted confidante on Amex ASR – I suppose he could make that argument. But then

I’d expect him to point to some hard -and-fast rule that says “even if it helps your clients, you


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can’t have communications like x, y or z.” My internal compass is guided entirely by class

member interests, as I said. If there is a sort of manual override mode that I need to install,

Judge Garaufis has not explained why. And if some exogenous rule of ethics is so very

compelling that it warrants depriving 3.4 million U.S. merchants of meaningful tools to control

their card acceptance costs – for the first time ever – then I think it is incumbent upon a judge to

write a decision explaining what that rule might be, and to do that after he gathers the relevant

facts and presents them free of manipulation.

* * *

gbf

[email protected]

And yet the little people all say the legal services blew tidbits and tattle tales that came true.


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Please ensure there are appropriate penalties for inflicting psychological torture on witnesses.

We hate bullies.

The Narcissists Addiction to Grandiosity:

The Roadshow for Therapists

Working with Narcissistic Victim Abuse


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Grandiosity is usually the most outstanding and discriminating feature of individuals with Narcissistic

Personality Disorder. Grandiosity can be expressed in an unrealistic overvaluation of talents and

abilities; preoccupation with fantasies of unlimited beauty, power, wealth or success; and a belief in

unrealistic superiority and uniqueness. This is usually accompanied by boastful, pretentious, self-centered

and self-referential behaviour. According to Gunderson and Ronningstam, from “The Diagnostic

Interview for Narcissistic Patients” (Archives of General Psychiatry,1990), the research shows that the

grandiose narcissist exaggerates his talents, capacity, and achievements in an unrealistic way. He

believes in his invulnerability, or does not recognize his limitations. His grandiose fantasies lead him to

believe that he does not need other people.

In his interpersonal relations, the narcissist craves for admiration and attention. When he picks someone

as the source of his attention, at first he unrealistically idealizes them (they are “all good”), but very soon

he usually ends up devaluing them (they become “all bad”), then, before long, they go on to have

feelings of contempt for that person. He behaves as if he is entitled to things, and has unreasonableexpectations of getting special treatment, and if for any reason his demands are not meet, then he

becomes hurt and enraged. He appears or behaves in an arrogant, haughty, or condescending way

towards people, and if he gets the opportunity to exploit them then he will, usually in a passive, indirect,

or manipulative way without any intention of reciprocating in any way. He completely lacks empathy (is

unable to both understand and feel for other people’s experience). His inability to maintain satisfactory,

mutual and enduring committed relationships is the most important feature of the narcissistic individual.

They often see others either as a means of ego inflation and support for their self-esteem, or as stepping

stones to achieving their own goals. When the narcissist is being reactive, he is hypersensitive. He

responds with intense anger to any criticism or defeat. He is very envi ous of anybody’s successes, no

matter how small the success is, and he thinks everybody is envious of him.

The Affects and Mood States of the narcissist show that he has sustained feelings of boredom,

meaninglessness, futility, and hollowness. He often feels emotionally impoverished: Yearns for deeper

emotional experiences. The Social and Moral Adaptation of the grandiose narcissist shows he has


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superficial and changing values and interests, and that he shows disregard for unusual/conventional

values or rules of society, and as a result he has corruptible moral and ethical standards. He has broken

laws under circumstances of being enraged, or as a means of avoiding defeat. He often exhibits sexual

behaviour that includes perversion, promiscuity, and/or lack of inhibitions.

So as you can see from the above research, grandiosity occurs when a person has an inflated self-esteem,

believe that they have special powers, spiritual connections, or religious relationships. A grandiose

individual feels unrealistically powerful, important, and invincible. These beliefs are frequently

accompanied by feelings of euphoria and intense pleasure. Nothing seems impossible, every problem has

a solution, and the person may feel an urgent need to initiate projects or activities. To the observer, the

grandiose individual appears to be pompous, boastful, exaggerated, impulsive, conceited,

condescending, and unrealistic. The fallout of grandiose behavior, especially when compounded by aNarcissistic Personality Disorders, can be devastating. The high risk behavior, the inflated self-esteem,

and delusions often lead to job loss, expulsion from school, and endless terminated relationships.

The narcissist differs from a normal person in that he lives out of a False Self that is so unrealistic, and a

Superego that is so sadistic, that he can never reach his highly unrealistic vision of his own abilities. As a

result there is a disparity between his accomplishments and his grandiose fantasies and inflated self-

image. This is referred to as The Grandiosity Gap (Vaknin). So staggering is this gap, that in the long

run, it is insupportable as it imposes excessive difficulties on the narcissist’s grasp of reality and social

skills. His surreal distortions push him either to retreat from the world or to go into a furor of acquiring

possessions – cars, sex, property, wealth, and power. Regardless of how successful the narcissist

becomes, often (in their mind) they end up being abject failures – because the Grandiosity Gap can never

be bridged.

The narcissist is always a slave to his own fantasy. And depending on the circumstances of the individual,

their grandiose fantasies are likely to cause them to either, suffer from inertia (with a dread to move), or

acceleration, (moving with great speed). Some narcissists are forever accelerating on the way to dizzier

height and on to greener pastures. While others succumb to a state of inertia, where their action seems

to freeze, then, spending only the minimal of energy they target the vulnerable as a way of existing. But

either way, the narcissist’s life is out of cont rol, at the mercy of heartless inner voices and internal forces.

Underneath all this, there is a Generalised Anxiety eating away at them.


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The Narcissistic Eye of Illusion

The narcissist believes his own illusions, and is blind to the fact that others can see through them. For

those people who are outside the circle of Narcissistic Supply, they can see the games that are being

played, having lost respect for him, they wisely give the narcissist a wide berth. Impervious in his armor

of grandiosity, the narcissist blindly lives in his ivory tower, where he believes that he is hugely impressive

to everybody. He displays his grandiosity daily in his exaggerated delusional fantasies of wealth, power,

or omnipotence. He is such a megalomaniac, that whatever he talks about, (whether it be work, family,

possessions, health, achievements, etc.) he is always the one who is being celebrated, for he is the

shining star within all of his stories. Any success another person has in his story is attributed to him; he is

the one who takes the responsibility for his family, his home, his company, because everybody else is

undependable, uncooperative, or incompetent. Even though he manipulates many people to do things for him, he constantly complains that nobody ever helps him. Having got help from others, he then goes

on to denigrate their abilities and contributions. All this is done to inspire more sympathy or admiration

for himself, which he craves. If you ever got a chance to visit him in his Kingdom, you would find that

everybody around him are not only pulling their weight, but carrying the narcissists share as well. Once

you understand the personality you are dealing with, it is easy to see that the narcissist’s addiction to

grandiosity is linked with his strong susceptibility to shame. The shame is in relation to failed aspirations

and ideals, plaguing and unsatisfactory early object relationships, and narcissistic manifestations with

shame at their core. Their inability to process their shame in a healthy way means that they are unable

to face up to it, and neutralize it so that they can move on to become a healthier individual. It is this

inability that leads to the characteristic postures, attitudes, and behaviour of the Grandiose Narcissist.

What is the intelligence at work in the grandiose behaviour you might ask? The intelligence behind the

grandiose behaviour for the narcissist is that it masks profound self-esteem problems, and helps to stave

off the hurt and shameful feeling that plagues him so profoundly. It also supports him in building and

maintaining his image of being powerful, talented, and desirable, because he genuinely fears that he is

worthless. Any slight or rejection, even unintentional, unsettles his self-image, throwing him into a fit of

anger and depression. For him, any failure or loss of any kind calls into question his specialness.

Predictability, he has trouble in his working and personal relationships because he perceives that others

fail to appreciate him sufficiently, and when this happens he tends to react in an arrogant and

manipulative fashion, which further damage the relationship. Part of the grandiose behaviour comes

across in a seductive manner, and this puts him at the center of the other person’s attention. He speaks

of casual acquaintances as close friends, and of friends as if they are intimate partners, and if he should

feel slighted or rejected in any way with these people, then he throws temper tantrums or makes threats

of retribution (which he will carry out). Because he is anti-social, he does not care about others, except


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to the extent that he can exploit people to his own ends. His grandiosity makes him believe that he is

beyond the law. For him, rules are made to be broken, and he breaks them whenever he thinks he can

get away with it. The grandiosity grows as he grows in power, then the narcissist loses touch with

reality, and it reflects his pervasive and lifelong failure to empathize with others, and to cope with

underlying feelings of inadequacy .

Conclusion:

Please make it super illegal to use psych torture on victims and witnesses to coverups.

The attacks on whistleblowers must stop. We therefore award the Legal Services Board 's ownwhistelblowers our highest distinction.

Thank you.

PS: The Legal Services Board is named at the SEC before the arrests but obviously the FBI & NSW

Cybercrime Unit acted on the Board Whistleblowers for no reason. P a g e | 35

Submission at Senate Inquiry into White Collar Witness Support Psych

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Transcript of Submission at Senate Inquiry into White Collar Witness Support Psych