Grice, Charles H
- Date
- 2021-05-27
Summary
Exhibit 125, filed May 27, 2021 as Document 160-7 in Blue Flame Medical LLC v. Chain Bridge Bank N.A., John J. Brough, and David M. Evinger, Civil Action No. 1:20-cv-00658, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. It consists of the cover of Volume I of the videotaped Zoom deposition of Charles H. Grice, taken April 9, 2021 and marked confidential, followed by transcript pages 137, 138, 291 and 292. In the first two of those pages the witness is questioned about his understanding that the funds at issue were never in Blue Flame Medical's account and whether he saw bank records corroborating that testimony. In the last two he states that the termination of the account relationships was reasonable in his view and describes how banks gather information about wire originators.
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EXHIBIT 125
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Page 1
CONFIDENTIAL - CHARLES H. GRICE VOL. I
US DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
BLUE FLAME MEDICAL LLC, :
Plaintiff, :
v. : Civil Action No.
CHAIN BRIDGE BANK N.A., : 1:20-cv-00658
JOHN J. BROUGH, and DAVID :
M. EVINGER, :
Defendants. :
------------------------ x
CHAIN BRIDGE BANK, N.A., :
Third-Party Plaintiff, :
v. :
JP MORGAN CHASE BANK, :
N.A., :
Third-Party Defendant. :
VIDEOTAPE DEPOSITION VIA ZOOM OF:
CHARLES H. GRICE VOLUME I
FRIDAY, APRIL 9, 2021
REPORTED BY:
SILVIA P. WAGE, CCR, CRR, RPR
JOB NO. 4528853
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1 CONFIDENTIAL - CHARLES H. GRICE VOL. I
2 pop surprise on a brand new account and it's got
3 characteristics that make it potentially
4 suspicious or unusual. And so I just don't know
5 a fact pattern that's like this.
6 I apologize. I don't have -- I can't
7 answer this from experience because this
8 transaction has too many jagged edges.
9 Q. I take it it's your opinion, though,
10 that the funds at issue here were never in Chain
11 Bridge Bank's -- or never in Blue Flame Medical's
12 account; am I right about that?
13 MR. MADDEN: Objection to the form.
14 A. That's my understanding. There were
15 very emphatic statements by Brough and Evinger
16 that these money were never in the account.
17 Q. And that's based on testimony,
18 correct?
19 A. Yes, sir.
20 Q. And is it based on documentation as
21 well?
22 A. I -- I don't know what you mean by
23 that.
24 Q. Have you seen --
25 A. This is the most relevant -- this
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1 CONFIDENTIAL - CHARLES H. GRICE VOL. I
2 will be the most relevant information.
3 Q. Have you seen bank documents that
4 corroborate their testimony that the funds always
5 stayed in the bank's account and never went to
6 Blue Flame Medical's account?
7 A. Have I seen documents other than the
8 sworn testimony?
9 Q. Yes.
10 A. I don't recall, as I sit here. I
11 just don't recall.
12 Q. Banks have records of all fund
13 transfers, correct, it's big part of banking
14 requirements?
15 A. Yes, sir.
16 Q. And if you wanted to know whether
17 those funds actually went into the account, you
18 wouldn't just talk to the bankers, you would look
19 at the records, correct?
20 A. Certainly. That would -- I mean, if
21 -- yes, I just don't recall as I sit here if I
22 saw that or if you asked questions about this.
23 If you asked questions, I read them. I just
24 don't recall what the -- I mean, to me the most
25 compelling part of this was the instantaneous
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1 CONFIDENTIAL - CHARLES H. GRICE VOL. I
2 26th I'm trying to make sense of the information
3 that he provided.
4 The afternoon of the 26th the bank
5 came to the determination it appears that the
6 risk of this relationship was not consistent with
7 the bank's appetite, which is a decision that
8 really only the bank can make and I support that
9 decision. So the termination of the account
10 relationships related to Red Line and Blue Flame
11 on the afternoon of the 26th, I think, was
12 perfectly reasonable given what they had just
13 experienced in the 24 hours prior.
14 Q. Is it also normal for a bank to
15 contact the counterparty to the wire transfer
16 directly as opposed to their banking
17 counterparty; is that normal?
18 MR. MADDEN: Objection, objection to
19 form.
20 A. Yes, sir. I talk to originators of
21 wires routinely to try to understand what the
22 transaction represented. So, if I'm in the
23 receiving bank, I need to understand. My one
24 early source of information is my client, right,
25 the beneficiary. That for a large transaction
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1 CONFIDENTIAL - CHARLES H. GRICE VOL. I
2 with this many kind of suspicious
3 characteristics, that's not sufficient. I want
4 to look at more information. So I'm going to,
5 basically, square that information against other
6 information.
7 So the other information banks
8 routinely gather is, you know, web search,
9 Internet information, Google hits, news about the
10 originator, you know, trying to build a profile
11 for what does this originator do. So is what I
12 can learn about it match what my customer has
13 told me they do.
14 And then if doubts persist, again, in
15 particular, against the backdrop of an extremely
16 large transaction, I am free to call the
17 originator.
18 Q. So the ordinary course would be to
19 gather information from your own client, that's a
20 normal thing to do, correct?
21 A. Right, as was done here.
22 Q. And to gather information from public
23 sources, Google searches and so on about both
24 parties to the transaction, correct?
25 A. Correct. And, you know, J.P.
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