District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona last week ordered Gold Mantis to answer in writing no later than Nov. 15, 2020 at 5 p.m. why the court should not treat its noncompliance as contempt of court; and why the court should not impose a civil contempt sanction requiring it to pay a $2,000 daily fine from the time all discovery and affidavits were to be produced.
The judge also wants Gold Mantis to explain why a default judgment should not be entered against it.
Gold Mantis attorney Tiberius Mocanu, in his reply to the court’s show-cause order, stated: “This fine has further motivated GM CNMI to comply with this court’s order and it will do so if it is granted an extension.”
Mocanu asked the court that the company be given an opportunity to produce the necessary information by Nov. 25, 2020 and, not be found in default.
He said production of discovery has been difficult as Gold Mantis does not have any personnel physically present in the CNMI.
Mocanu said Gold Mantis has vacated its offices in the CNMI and has no further dealings or business in the Commonwealth.
He added that Gold Mantis has been working diligently to produce the documents and information it was ordered to produce.
Mocanu said since the issuance of the court order, “GM has paid what it owed its accounting firm, and it has produced 300-plus financial documents. It has also interviewed Ding Jianming, Pang Hao, and Yuan Wei who are former employees of GM in order to comprehensively provide affidavits regarding the preservation of evidence, the efforts made to locate Electronically Stored Information, documents, and hardware that might contain responsive information.”
Moreover, Gold Mantis, through its representative Huang Ji, has authorized Mocanu to seek additional documents from the Bank of Hawaii where it maintained an account, and also to seek tax filings from the CNMI Department of Finance, the lawyer said.
He did not indicate whether Gold Mantis will produce any information from WeChat accounts or any documents concerning the People’s Republic of China government investigation into the company’s labor practices on Saipan.
On Oct. 19, 2020, Judge Manglona ordered Gold Mantis to, on or before Oct. 29, 2020, (1) produce all bank records; (2) produce all records held by Gold Mantis’ accountant; (3) produce all documents related to a People’s Republic of China government inquiry into Gold Mantis’ operations on Saipan; (4) produce all responsive Electronically Stored Information or ESI; (5) provide detailed affidavits describing Gold Mantis’ efforts to preserve and search for ESI (and providing drafts thereof to the plaintiffs by Oct. 25, 2020 for comment); (6) provide updated responses to plaintiffs’ request for proposals and interrogatories; and (7) submit a certification of compliance with the order.
Judge Manglona, in the same order, also approved the award of attorney’s fees related to the plaintiffs’ filing of the motion against Gold Mantis.
The plaintiffs are seeking $30,517.80 in attorney’s fees.
Represented by attorneys Aaron Halegua and Bruce Berline, the plaintiffs are Tianming Wang, Dong Han, Yongjun Meng, Liangcai Sun, Youli Wang, Qingchun Xu and Duxin Yan.
The plaintiffs previously worked for Imperial Pacific International’s former contractor and subcontractor: MCC International and Gold Mantis.
The plaintiffs initially sued MCC and Gold Mantis only, but included IPI in their amended complaint.
MCC International is represented by attorney Robert T. Torres.
The plaintiffs are suing the defendants for forced labor, negligence, and liability for employees of subcontractors. In their amended complaint, the plaintiffs are also alleging human trafficking violations.
The plaintiffs have asked the federal court to issue an order awarding them $3.86 million in compensatory damages and $7.72 million in punitive damages.
