American court hearing recordings and interviews - 23andMe - Audio of May 13 2025 Bankruptcy Court Hearing, case 2025-40976 before the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, #bankruptcy, #privacy, #data, #genetics #sale #truecrime #23andMe

Episode Date: May 16, 2025

including update re 23andMe bankruptcy auction bidding

23 and me holding co the parents is in the courtroom please morning your honor tom risky carmy macablam on the u.s. justice state all right parents is on the webx good morning your honor Kevin Barnes class A shareholder good morning your honor Charles Lucito class A shareholder you know I'd like to address the court at the end of the two agenda items is possible we'll see you honor Jessica choice we'll see how that goes miss Troy sorry I got back and Your Honor, again, Jessica to Paul was with the Norton and Garrison on behalf of the others. Good morning, Your Honor.

Sorry. I'll just say mine. Good morning, Your Honor. Megan McLaughlin, Kelly Dr. and Warren, counsel to the committee. Good morning, Your Honor. Michael Greger of Alan Mack and Beck and Beck, Gamble, Mallory, and Massis, on behalf of Ramble and KROP Tech LLC. Good morning, Your Honor. Tobias Keller, representing the class council.

Good morning, Your Honor. Matthew Langley, representing. is for the lemonade pixel class action. All right, Mr. Risky, are you leading the way? Thanks, Your Honor. Tom Risky for the record. Yes, Your Honor, I think we have a pretty brief docket for today. Obviously, my colleagues and the folks at Moles are spending a lot of their time preparing for tomorrow's auction.

So I'm not sure we have a substantive update on the case generally other than that. If it pleases the court, I think I'd just go in order of the agenda today. I can take the projection motion, and then I'd ask Ms. Choi to present the briefing issues with respect to the class claimants and then allow your honor to ask any questions. You can do that if that works. Sure. Since you mentioned an auction, I think if there's at least two bids, correct? We have multiple bids.

I think there's still some issues going on with respect to potential other qualified bids, but we are still hoping for a – Mr. Hopkins had a robust auction. Okay, very good. Well, yeah, why don't we take up the rejection motion, then where do we stand on that? Thank, Your Honor. So I am pleased to report that the removal went smoothly last week. Everything was out as a Friday.

However, as I said previous times, there's still an additional step of the county and the fire department signing off on that to make sure everything was fine. It's my understanding that's in process. Once we have that, and I can get that to the landlord, I'm cautiously optimistic. we'll be able to resolve this.

So we do have an agreement to just adjourn this to the next week's hearing. Okay, let's hold on for just a second. Are we on the record? Are we okay? We're still on record. Okay. Okay.

All right. Sorry, go ahead. No worries. I'm not sure Ms. Jones or Mr. Geiger are on today for the landlord, but I did speak with them even. I heard Mr. Greger. This morning.

Okay. Okay. So adjourned to next Tuesday, 130? Correct, yeah. Okay. Mr. Greger, Ms. Jones, any anything further on that? or are we good with next Tuesday, 130?

Gregor, I think you're on mute. I apologize, Your Honor. Nothing further. We're good for 130 next Tuesday. Okay. Currently, I think that would be the only thing set on that calendar, so if it's resolved or you need another continuance, if you'd let Mr. Spital know,

and we could just take care of that and wouldn't need to have everybody to dial in and for a non-substable hearing. We appreciate that. But perhaps it will be resolved, or perhaps there will be something to dispute, so we'll see how to go. Thank you, Your Honor.

Thank you, Your Honor. The next matter that I previewed is, with respect to the issue of briefing the class claims, we filed one stipulation with respect to one class of claimants, and then late last night filed another resolution with pixel claimants. Ms. Choi from Paul Weiss is on. I'm not seen her, but I saw it earlier. Yeah, she's on. I go here. we have a different view, I guess.

Oh, so there's nothing, you can't see anything. Oh, got you. Okay, yes. I can see Ms. Choi is on, and so we can take comfort in that. Okay. So if this, I'd ask if Ms. Choi is anything to put on the record with respect to the few stipulations, and I think she'd be available to answer any questions

that the court may have. And Ms. Choi, you're muted. Hi, Your Honor. Can you hear me? Yes, there we go. Okay. Great. Jessica Choir is Paul Rice. I thought I would provide a brief update on the Rule 7023 briefing schedule.

As Mr. Risky noted, the Bar-Dade order contemplates that the debtors in the committee would meet and confer with two sets of claimants. First, the main plaintiffs and the members of the settlement class has been conditionally and preliminarily approved in the class action currently pending before Judge Chen in the Northern District of California. And second, with the main plaintiffs in the class action law, we currently pending before Judge Lynn, in the Northern District of California, which I will refer to as the PIXO litigation. I'm happy to report that the debtors have been able to agree on the Rule of 2023 schedule with those separate claimants.

Our schedule with the data breach claimants is filed at docket number 401, and our Rule 7023 schedule with PICSailment is filed at document number 405. I'm happy to briefly go through what those briefing schedules contemplate your offer. If your honor has specific questions, I'm happy to adjust it at this time. Sure. I have them both in front of me, so I'm familiar with them. I guess a general question, is there, is it beneficial to have separate hearings and separate

tracks for these, or would they benefit from being considered together? I don't want to disrupt the equilibrium here. Yeah, I mean, I think we've engaged in separate discussions because the two class questions are a bit differently situated. And one notable difference, Your Honor, is that our briefing schedule with a date of breach claimant currently does not contemplate any discovery. So I think it would be efficient for the estate to proceed separately on a more expedited briefing scheduled timeframe with the dated breach claimant.

Our schedule was the pixel claimants, however, but I contemplate some discovery. And we met and conferred and tried to be efficient with the time and the estate resources, as much as possible. And the fiscal claimants have agreed to forego depositions for the time being, as well as the debtors. A subject to our rights to seek depositions at a later time if the documents produce and responses to the interrobatories proves to be insufficient or require further explanation.

So given that, you know, the two matters are a bit differently situated in terms of where we stand on discovery and other issues, I do think it would be beneficial to proceed on, you know, on separate track. Okay. Okay, all right, that's certainly fine with me. Then for scheduling, a minor issue for Pixel, a larger one for the cyber incident class. I have a trial on July 14th. It'll be perhaps a half-day trial, so I could hear you on the 15th on the Pixel class action,

if that would make sense. I'm out of town on June 10th when you identified hearing date for the cyber incident. And then, as you know, we have the sale here to the schedule for the next week. That's a busy time, so tell me what other constraints there are on scheduling a hearing for the cyber incident with the plan. And Mr. Riske did remind me that the court might be unavailable the week of June 9th. I have been able to get in touch with Mr. Teller prior to this call, and we would be amenable to pushing all the dates in the data breach Rule 7023 briefing scheduled by a week so that the hearing, such of the Rule 7023 motion for the date of breach claimants would be heard sometime the week of June 16th if that would work for Your Honor.

I believe Mr. Teller's attending as well. So Mr. Teller could speak up if he has any issues with that. I can confirm the same, Your Honor. Okay. So here's what that week looks like. I really can't do it on the 16th, given my travel schedule, and the need to absorb what I assume is going to be a lengthy CPO filing, whatever comes before the sale hearing,

and the briefing on the cyber incident approved plan. So we have the sale hearing on the 17th. We have a holiday on the 19th. I have regular hearings scheduled on the 18th in the morning. I don't know how expensive those will be at this point, but not something that will take all day. So one possibility would be to leave the 17th for the sale hearing. If it goes on, we could pick it up the afternoon of the 18th, otherwise we could schedule the cyber incident

to claim hearing from the afternoon. And if that's not enough time for that, we'd have to continue it probably for the fault. How does that sound? Your Honor. But our suggestion, we go ahead and take the 18th. We also are engaging in discussions with the debtor, and there is some possibility that we will have a consensual resolution. So between the two of those, my fingers are crossed,

so we can get this resolved timely. All right. I think we can work with that. We don't have anything scheduled. Thank you. Just to confirm that, that will push out the remainder of the briefing schedule items with respect to the data breach claimant. So right now we have the deadline for the data breach claimants to file the Rule 7023 motion

on May 16th. I think that would get kicked to May 23rd, and the other deadlines that are contemplated in the data breach of Rule 7023 motion would also get kicked, I think, by a week. I'm happy to file an updated notice

on the docket if that would be helpful. I'll leave that up to you. You and Mr. Keller know what the deadlines are. If it makes sense to clarify that on the record for any others who may be observing, that's certainly fine with me. Maybe simplest considering how straightforward it would be to do that.

So, okay, so we'll schedule the hearing on the Cyberdident Approval claim for 1.30 central time on Wednesday, June 18th. And if the sale hearing doesn't wrap up on the 17th, I guess I'll defer to you as to which is more important to jump into on the afternoon of the 18th, considering we have a holiday next day. Yes, and that will work. And then we'll schedule the Pixel proof of claim hearing. Let's, do we have West Coast lawyers who will be participating remotely in that or should we start at 9 a.m. I'll refer to Mr. Langley, who I believe is online on behalf of the school permit, 9 a.m. start with work.

Mr. Langley, I'm not sure where you're located, although I may I imagine you'll probably be in court to handle it. Yeah, so I'm in Chicago, so 9 a.m. Central time works for us. Okay, all right, so let's schedule that hearing at 9 a.m. Central on Tuesday, July 15th. Great. Okay. All right, and if the move ants, when they file their motion for leave to file the class proof of claim, if you would trigger that hearing date in ECF when you file discussing here.

Great. Okay. Anything further on either of those class group claim matters? No, Your Honor. Thank you. Mr. Risky, anything further from... No, Your Honor, thank you.

Nothing further from the debtor. Are anything from the creditors committee? No, Your Honor. Okay. Mr. Vecito, you mentioned, do you wanted to make a comment? Yes, it's more than a comment, Your Honor. To make the court aware,

there was a post on the ex-social media platform on May 6th by a former founder and officer of the company. That was reposted 23 times with 14,000 views. The post was, well, based on what I'm hearing on the beach for 23 in May, I think it makes no sense for customers to download their data first, then delete their account. Some of the more reputable getters have decided to drop out, given all the challenges, 23 in me faces.

In the future, there may be great options. to upload your S&P data files to other platforms offering comprehensive analysis. In my opinion, Your Honor, the confidentiality stipulations and agreements in the bidding procedures has been violated, and the debtors has been harmed,

and all stakeholders, including the equity shareholders, have been prejudiced negatively based on any genetic database diminishing because of this post. In addition, the stock that was trading at May 6th for more than $1.20 a share yesterday and today was trading for less than 60 cents this year. In my opinion, there might be negligence on the part of the debtors that could be questioned. And it appears that confidential bidding information has and is being traded upon by privileged parties. I'm requesting relief from the court to put all shareholders,

on equal footing and provide information that will allow the non-represented parties the ability to potentially and appropriately object to any sales transaction because of the impact these breaches may have had on the bidding and sales process. And I could go over that release that I would be requesting. But the bottom line, Your Honor, is this was an inappropriate approach. And in my opinion, the confidentiality agreements have been violated in the bidding procedures. All right, Mr. Visito, if there's relief that you want from the court, you'll need to file a motion and file that with the clerk of the court and serve that on the debtors and other parties who you think may be responsible so that they can respond to that. As you know, anyone can post anything on Twitter that doesn't mean it's true.

I have no basis to determine whether or not it's true, and so I don't have anything that I can act on based on your report of a post on Twitter earlier this month, Mr. Recedo. So if you'd like to leave from the court, put it in writing, please, and file it with the clerk for the court and serve it out and set for hearing. And we'll figure out what to do about it. And you can contact Mr. Spital, the courtroom deputy, if you need information about the logistics of getting something filed and served. All right, anything further to come from? Okay, we'll be adjourned. Thanks.