Here's a fascinating new filing in the Alfa Bank v Fusion case. After our corner on Twitter identified Danchenko, the Alfa guys moved to compel Danchenko to provide documents and testimony in relation to their own defamation case against Fusion GPS.
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco…
In August 2020, the Alfa guys personally served Danchenko with a subpoena. Danchenko's lawyer, Mark Schamel, then spent nine weeks negotiating with the Alfa lawyers. When that failed, Alfa filed a motion to compel compliance from Danchenko and provided Schamel with a copy.
Schamel then asked for an extension, allegedly because he was moving to a new law firm (that's an interesting topic in and of itself in terms of taking Danchenko with him). Schamel then promised to file his motion–which he failed to do. He then ignored the Alfa lawyers.
This is where it gets interesting. Based on Danchenko's failure to respond to the motion to compel, Alfa filed a notice to force Danchenko to appear at a deposition. This is when Schamel reappeared, claiming that Danchenko hadn't been served with the motion to compel.
Given that Danchenko was served with the original subpoena, given that his lawyer spent 9 weeks negotiating with Alfa, and given that his lawyer acknowledged receipt of the motion to compel–and even asked for extension of time to reply–this is an extremely contrived argument.
The Alfa lawyers are now threatening sanctions, calling out Schamel for vexatiousness. Of course, lawyers fight dirty but Schamel is pushing the boundaries hard despite the fact that Danchenko is not even the one being sued here. Why take the risk? Who is behind all this?
This exchange between Schamel and the Alfa lawyer is really something. Excuse after excuse, after which Schamel just ignores the other side altogether. Not sure what Schamel means when he says he hasn't been retained–recall this is three months after he started negotiating.
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