FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT, INC.;
NETWORK MARKETING LLC; No. 09-15684
NETWORK SERVICES DISTRIBUTION, D.C. No.
INC.; CHARLES V. CASTRO; 2:05-cv-00440-
ELIZABETH L. CASTRO; GREGORY LDG-LRL
HIGH; SUNBELT MARKETING, INC., OPINION
Defendants-Appellants,
and
PHYLLIS WATSON,
Relief Defendant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Nevada
Lloyd D. George, Senior District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted
June 15, 2010—San Francisco, California
Filed August 16, 2010
Before: Pamela Ann Rymer and Raymond C. Fisher,
Circuit Judges, and Rebecca R. Pallmeyer,
District Judge.*
Opinion by Judge Pallmeyer
*The Honorable Rebecca R. Pallmeyer, United States District Judge for
the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation.
11671
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11675
COUNSEL
Jeffrey S. Benice, Costa Mesa, California, for the defendants-
appellants.
Willard K. Tom, John F. Daly, and Mark S. Hegedus
(argued), Federal Trade Commission, Washington, D.C., Lisa
D. Rosenthal, Kerry O’Brien, Federal Trade Commission, San
Francisco, California, for the plaintiff-appellee.
11676 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
OPINION
PALLMEYER, District Judge:
OVERVIEW
Appellants are a group of related companies and their prin-
cipals, engaged in the business of marketing and selling inter-
net kiosk investment opportunities. On summary judgment,
the district court found Appellants civilly liable for making
material misrepresentations and engaging in deceptive busi-
ness practices in violation of Section 5(a) of the Federal Trade
Commission Act (“FTC Act”), 15 U.S.C. § 45(a), and the
FTC’s Franchise Rule, 16 C.F.R. § 436 (2005). As a remedy,
the district court imposed liability for equitable monetary
relief upon the companies, their owner, and one of their senior
officers. Because the court determined that fees for Appel-
lants’ attorney were paid from funds derived from the unlaw-
ful activities, the court also imposed a constructive trust over
a portion of those fees. On appeal, Appellants contend that the
district court erred in imposing a constructive trust upon their
attorneys’ fees and assert that unresolved issues of fact with
regard to Appellants’ mental states precluded summary judg-
ment. For the reasons explained below, we affirm the district
court’s decision in its entirety.
BACKGROUND
I. The Sham “Business Opportunity”
From 2001 to 2004, Appellant Network Services Depot,
Inc. (“NSD”), its owner Charles Castro, and its senior execu-
tive Gregory High were in the business of selling internet
kiosk business opportunities. In theory, the internet kiosks
were to be stand-alone computer terminals, placed in public
spaces such as airports or hotel lobbies, at which a user could
log onto the internet for a fee charged to the user’s credit card.
NSD sold the opportunities to investors for amounts ranging
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11677
from $4,400 to $7,000 per kiosk. In return, the company
promised that it would secure locations and arrange for instal-
lation and activation of fully functional kiosk terminals. NSD
issued each customer who purchased a kiosk opportunity a
bill of sale and a letter transferring NSD’s rights, title, and
interest in a specific kiosk to the customer. Ostensibly, the
revenues thereafter generated by the kiosk would be paid to
the customer under a quasi-franchise arrangement. In its sales
pitch to prospective customers, NSD represented that the
internet kiosks would generate substantial revenue. “Well
placed devices will generate $1,000 per day,” boasted one
NSD PowerPoint presentation. NSD also provided customers
with a disclosure agreement circular, which contained the fol-
lowing statements:
We will sell you one or more publicly-accessible
Internet access terminal Businesses, fully installed at
a specific location selected by you from among
available Sites we have identified . . . or at a Site
which you own or lease or have secured yourself
....
Once you notify us of the Site you have chosen
. . . , we will . . . install an Internet Access terminal
at that Site, and sell to you that Business and assign
the Site Agreement to you, if applicable . . . [and]
Since you are purchasing one or more fully-
operational Business(es), you will begin operation of
your Business(es) immediately upon the Closing,
which barring unforeseen circumstances will occur
no later than 60 days after the Effective Date of your
Sales Agreement, or 30 days after you have submit-
ted a Site Acceptance Notice for each Business,
whichever is later.
In late 2001, NSD and Castro entered into a working rela-
tionship with Ed Bevilacqua and his internet kiosk companies
11678 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
—Bikini Vending Corp., MyMart, Inc., and 360 Wireless
Corp. (collectively referred to as “BVC”)—whereby Bevilac-
qua and BVC agreed to supply and install the kiosks on
NSD’s behalf at locations that BVC identified and obtained.
In exchange, NSD agreed to pay BVC a share of the proceeds
generated from its ongoing efforts in promoting and selling
the business opportunities to the public. Although it had dele-
gated the task of securing locations and installing kiosks to
BVC, NSD remained exclusively contractually obligated to its
customers to place and install the kiosks.
In most instances, BVC also served as a third-party man-
ager for NSD’s customers, ostensibly operating and oversee-
ing purchased kiosk sites on the customers’ behalf. As part of
its management agreement, BVC guaranteed that NSD’s cus-
tomers would receive a set minimum revenue payment each
month. NSD promoted BVC’s management abilities and the
revenue guarantee in its sales and marketing materials, and
BVC’s representations ultimately became an integral NSD
selling point. As Castro later explained: “I would like to be
able to say that I was successful with [NSD] because of my
charm and business savvy, et cetera. That’s not why we were
successful. We were successful because of Ed [Bevilacqua].
. . . [T]he reality of it was the folks that bought from [NSD]
were buying from Ed.” Castro and Bevilacqua were in fre-
quent communication, and the two men occasionally appeared
together to promote the kiosk program in joint presentations.
Appellant Gregory High also regularly communicated with
Bevilacqua and other BVC agents and performed official acts,
such as signing documents, on BVC’s behalf in the regular
course of his duties at NSD.
By most outward appearances, the partnership between
NSD and BVC was a fruitful one. In 2003, BVC represented
that it had already installed thousands of operational kiosk ter-
minals, and NSD disseminated projections that claimed the
average monthly revenue for such terminals exceeded $1,100
per machine per month. While there is no evidence that any
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11679
NSD customer ever saw returns approaching those projec-
tions, BVC did send NSD’s customers the guaranteed “mini-
mum revenue payment” every month, as promised. NSD also
continued to promise customers exponential growth in the
internet kiosk market. Both NSD and BVC publicly stated
that their goal was to install and sell 250,000 kiosk locations
nationwide by 2006. Based largely on NSD’s growth and rev-
enue forecasts, more than 800 consumers purchased or traded
other assets in exchange for thousands of NSD kiosk business
opportunities by early 2004. According to a Federal Trade
Commission (“FTC”) analysis of Appellants’ financial
records, consumers paid NSD and its affiliates more than $18
million for participation in the kiosk program.
In reality, however, the vast majority of the kiosk opportu-
nities that NSD sold to the public simply did not exist. Only
270 kiosks were ever actually manufactured and installed,
and, of those, fewer than 160 ever had operational connec-
tions to the internet. As these numbers reveal, almost all of
the thousands of business opportunities that NSD marketed
and sold to the public were, in fact, a sham. According to
BVC’s former Chief Financial Officer Alejandro Tanabe, the
minimum monthly payments that BVC sent to kiosk custom-
ers came primarily from money that the company received
from NSD as new customers signed up for the program.
“There was no other significant source of revenue,” Tanabe
testified, because all of the functioning kiosks combined gen-
erated less than $2,000 per month. Over the course of his ten-
ure, Tanabe also discovered accounting irregularities at BVC
that suggested Bevilacqua had diverted millions of dollars in
revenue for his personal use.1 The FTC now describes the
operation as “a classic Ponzi scheme.”
The scheme began to unravel in February 2004, when a
1
Bevilacqua and BVC are not parties to this action; the FTC reports it
has pursued or intends to pursue its claims against Bevilacqua and BVC
in separate proceedings.
11680 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
California-based television news affiliate aired an investiga-
tive report exposing BVC’s questionable business practices.
In March 2004, Tanabe and other BVC employees came for-
ward and confirmed that BVC had been perpetrating its fraud-
ulent activities by funding payment obligations with money
diverted from new investors. Appellants concede that the
actions and representations made by BVC and Bevilacqua
were fraudulent and misleading, and they do not dispute that
the scheme resulted in millions of dollars in losses to NSD’s
customers. Appellants contend, however, that neither Castro
nor High personally had any advance knowledge of the fraud-
ulent scheme. Indeed, Appellants claim, NSD itself was the
primary victim of Bevilacqua’s fraud. According to Appel-
lants, Bevilacqua deliberately concealed the full scope of the
fraud in order to obtain payments totaling more than $10.5
million from NSD for the installation of kiosks that never
existed.
In an affidavit produced in opposition to summary judg-
ment, Castro stated that he first became aware of the fraudu-
lent scheme in March 2004 when BVC’s practices were
unmasked by Tanabe. Castro then contacted the Federal
Bureau of Investigation at the suggestion of an attorney. In
cooperation with the FBI, Castro had five secretly recorded
conversations with Bevilacqua between March 10 and March
12, 2004.2 According to Castro, during these conversations,
Bevilacqua “continued to perpetrate his fraudulent scheme.”
The blanket denial in Castro’s affidavit is at odds, however,
with the deposition testimony that he gave earlier in the case.
While Castro consistently disavowed all actual knowledge of
fraud in that testimony, he acknowledged several incidents
over the course of his relationship with Bevilacqua that were
early indications of BVC’s malfeasance. Castro and Bevilac-
qua had worked closely together to develop their mutual busi-
ness interests after first meeting in 2001. “I thought he was a
2
The record does not contain tapes or transcripts of these conversations.
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11681
guy that understood the business,” Castro testified. “[He] did
not strike me as the kind of guy that would ever do what he
did.” As time went on, however, Castro began to suspect that
Bevilacqua might prove incapable of delivering on some of
the grand promises he was making to NSD’s customers:
“[W]hen Ed would articulate to a group of people, a room full
of people, with myself being present . . . and he would say [he
could install] 20,000 machines in two and a half years, it
made me want to choke. . . .” After one meeting in December
2003, when Bevilacqua made another grandiose projection to
a group of NSD sales agents, Castro confronted Bevilacqua
privately with his concerns: “I sat with Ed,” Castro testified,
“and [I] said, ‘Ed, you, kind of, told the agents you had the
capacity to do this [installation of 1,000 new machines per
month]. Do you have the capacity to do this?’ It was at that
time he disclosed to me that he was about 300 [machines]
behind [the number of existing orders] and that he had $2 mil-
lion in the bank.” At no point, however, did Castro ever pub-
licly contradict or question the representations that
Bevilacqua was making to NSD’s customers or agents.
Also in late 2003, NSD began receiving reports from a
number of customers who had visited the supposed sites of
their kiosks only to find nothing there. Other customers
reported that, while they knew their machines had not yet
been installed, they had inexplicably begun to receive “mini-
mum revenue payments” purportedly generated by the non-
functional kiosks. Castro received many of these reports
personally.3 For example, Castro received an e-mail from one
such customer, which made the following prescient observa-
tion:
I have been receiving my revenue payments as
3
High also estimated that he had personally received over 30 customer
complaints about nonexistent kiosks, but he stated that his usual practice
was to simply refer complaining customers directly to BVC to “let them
work it out.”
11682 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
promised. I am deeply concerned, however, where
my revenue payments are coming from. My
machines are certainly not producing enough reve-
nue to pay me the minimum amounts. . . . Where is
the extra money coming from to allow BVC to make
its required minimum monthly payments and more
importantly, how long can this trend continue before
BVC is in serious financial trouble?
Though Appellants now argue that such complaints were too
isolated or insignificant to put Castro on notice that something
was seriously amiss with BVC’s practices, the undisputed evi-
dence confirms that Castro was in fact increasingly concerned
by the numerous complaints. In December 2003, Castro sent
Bevilacqua an e-mail, saying: “As I’m sure you are aware,
this is rapidly becoming a huge issue. Clients and agents are
driving out to the sites to find no kiosks installed.” In his
reply message, Bevilacqua responded to this “huge issue” by
asking Castro to direct that High compile a list of the com-
plaining customers and the sites visited “so we can get them
moved up in the list.” High admitted that, around this same
time, he began assigning new customers to kiosk sites that
were, in his words, “not too close to where the client and
agent live[d]” in order to make it more difficult for customers
to physically inspect kiosk locations. In this way, NSD was
complicit in disguising the delays plaguing the installation
process. Nevertheless, neither Castro, High, nor any other
NSD agent ever disclosed such problems to the public or
attempted to decelerate efforts to promote and sell the busi-
ness opportunities to new customers.
Castro acknowledged that NSD had a “responsibility” to
respond to the consumer complaints, but he admitted that nei-
ther he nor High ever sought to investigate complaints by reg-
ularly visiting kiosk sites or independently verifying that
machines had actually been installed.4 Instead, both men sim-
4
Castro claimed only to have visited a few kiosk sites located near
NSD’s offices.
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11683
ply took Bevilacqua’s word for it when BVC confirmed that
kiosks were up and running. On every occasion when he
inquired about a missing kiosk, Castro testified, Bevilacqua or
his employees reported that the kiosk in question had been
moved to another location or that its installation had been
temporarily delayed because of unforeseen technical prob-
lems. Castro admitted that he accepted Bevilacqua’s represen-
tations essentially at face value. “BVC would always have the
appropriate response as to why [the machine] wasn’t there,”
Castro testified. “So on the surface, problem solved.” Despite
its contractual obligations to place machines for its customers,
NSD never sought or received any physical or written confir-
mation that kiosk installation was continuing apace or that
individual machines were actually operational. “We never got
anything in writing from them that would verify that there
was a machine deployed,” Castro said. “Generally, it was
when the first [minimum monthly payment] check went out
to the client. That’s how it was verified.”
Castro also acknowledged that NSD had deliberately
refrained from delving too deeply into BVC’s business prac-
tices:
I felt at the time the need for me and Ed to remain
separate was essential. . . . Ed’s favorite saying was,
“Charlie and I have, like, a Chinese wall built
between us.” That was his — and to some degree
that was true. My role was to sell machines. His role
was to install, maintain, service, et cetera, the
machinery, submit payments to the client[s] of the
machines. We were very careful not to cross those
boundaries.
This “Chinese wall” apparently remained in place even after
December 2003, when Bevilacqua privately admitted that
BVC was unable to meet installation demand. Until the fraud
was ultimately brought fully to light in March 2004, NSD
continued to promulgate its high profitability projections, to
11684 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
promise its customers that kiosks could be operational in as
little as 30 days, and to aggressively market and sell the busi-
ness opportunities. In fact, the period between late 2003 and
early 2004 saw NSD’s highest sales of any time during its
four-year relationship with BVC.
II. Retention of Defense Counsel
In late 2004, the FTC began investigating Appellants for
their role in the fraud. In meetings with Castro and his former
lawyer Peter Spivack, FTC staff members expressed their
belief that Appellants could be held liable for violations of the
FTC Act and the Franchise Rule. The FTC provided Spivack
with a draft complaint alleging such violations, and from
November 2004 until early February 2005, the parties
engaged in protracted negotiations in an effort to avoid a civil
lawsuit. In the context of those negotiations, Castro provided
the FTC with sworn financial disclosure statements, which
included information regarding two custodial accounts held
by Relief Defendant Phyllis Watson, Castro’s mother-in-law,
for the benefit of Castro’s minor children. According to the
financial disclosures, the custodial accounts contained
$839,494. In contrast, the aggregate reported value of all of
Castro’s personal bank accounts was approximately $25,000.
On January 6, 2005, FTC staff members questioned Castro
about the origin of the funds in the custodial accounts. Castro
claimed that the funds had been held in trust for his children
for a number of years. He did not disclose during the inter-
view, however, that earlier that very day, Watson had with-
drawn roughly $888,000 from the custodial accounts in the
form of a cashier’s check and signed the check over to Castro
and his wife.
On January 14, 2005, Castro signed a retainer agreement
with attorney Jeffrey Benice. According to Benice, Appellants
paid him a one-time lump sum of $375,000 pursuant to a “flat
fee arrangement,” in which Benice agreed to fully represent
Appellants throughout the duration of their litigation with the
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11685
FTC. The agreement designated all fees as “earned upon
receipt,” apparently with the intent that the funds would
immediately become Benice’s property upon payment. Castro
also engaged attorney Marc Forsythe as co-defense counsel,
paying Forsythe $500,000 under a similar up-front fee arrange-
ment.5 It is undisputed that Castro paid Benice and Forsythe
using the funds that had been surreptitiously withdrawn from
the custodial accounts eight days earlier. At the time of the fee
arrangement, the custodial funds represented more than 90
percent of Castro’s liquid assets. Benice stated that, at the
time of payment, he “understood [Appellants] were in a dis-
pute with the FTC and that the FTC could eventually take
action against them.” He denied, however, having any
“knowledge that the FTC intended to seek” a freeze on Appel-
lants’ assets in connection with this litigation. Benice also
stated that, prior to accepting payment, he investigated finan-
cial records for Castro and NSD, discussed the case with his
clients and co-counsel, and learned of Castro’s cooperation
with the FBI investigation. Though his declaration before the
district court made no mention of this fact, Benice asserted at
oral argument before this panel that he was “absolutely”
aware of the draft complaint provided by the FTC. Benice fur-
ther stated at oral argument that his co-counsel Marc Forsythe
had conferred with Spivack before assuming the case. At that
time, neither Benice nor Castro reported to the FTC that the
custodial account funds had been used to pay legal fees.
On February 2, 2005, the FTC discontinued its settlement
negotiations with Castro after Castro refused to comply with
further requests for information regarding the custodial
accounts. On March 31, 2005, the Federal Trade Commission
filed a civil complaint in the United States District Court for
the District of Nevada against Castro, High, NSD, and three
5
On February 7, 2005, Forsythe’s firm transferred $270,000 back to
Watson as trustee of a newly created trust account purportedly benefitting
Castro’s children. Forsythe and the FTC subsequently reached a settlement
in which Forsythe turned some portion of his fees over to the FTC.
11686 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
other companies owned by Castro.6 The FTC sought both a
permanent injunction to bar Appellants from selling the sham
business opportunities and equitable monetary relief to dis-
gorge the proceeds of the kiosk scheme. On April 7, 2005,
District Judge Lloyd George issued a temporary restraining
order freezing all of Appellants’ assets, including those held
by third parties. In a faxed letter dated April 27, 2005, the
FTC informed Benice that it believed the funds he had
received pursuant to his arrangement with Castro were prop-
erly subject to the freeze.
III. Conclusions of the District Court
Prior to trial, the FTC and Appellants filed cross-motions
for summary judgment. Finding no material issues of fact,
Judge George denied Defendants’ motion, granted the FTC’s
motion, and found the Corporate Appellants, Castro and High,
personally liable for equitable monetary relief. The district
court observed that, despite the disavowals of Castro and
High, the undisputed evidence was sufficient to establish that
both men had the requisite knowledge to incur individual per-
sonal liability for equitable relief. The court explained:
NSD’s sales agreement and offering circular . . .
incontrovertibly obligated NSD to locate and install
the kiosks, and it was a misrepresentation for NSD
6
Castro and his wife also own all of the companies named as Defen-
dants in this action. There is substantial overlap among the companies, and
the district court found them all to constitute a single enterprise; they share
ownership and management (namely, Castro), telephone numbers,
employees, e-mail systems, and all were involved in the promotion and
sale of internet kiosks. The other three Castro companies were primarily
marketers and sellers of public payphone and jukebox business opportuni-
ties, but the companies participated in an exchange system with NSD,
dubbed the “Diamond Program,” which enabled consumers who had ini-
tially invested in unprofitable payphone or jukebox opportunities to swap
those investments for NSD’s internet kiosk offerings. The parties do not
dispute that Castro controlled the business activities of all of these compa-
nies.
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11687
to so promise given defendants’ knowledge that the
installations were not being done, or their reckless
disregard for why. . . . [NSD] did next to nothing to
verify that purchasers had actually acquired owner-
ship of an operating kiosk, or that the kiosks actually
had been placed as promised. . . . [A]t a minimum,
Castro should have verified that NSD’s obligation to
locate and install the kiosks was being accomplished
by Bevilacqua by (1) checking on at least some of
the physical sites where the kiosks were located, or
even ask[ing] for photos to confirm the placements,
(2) requesting some kind of documentary evidence
that the kiosks had been located at specific sites (for
instance, contracts between Bevilacqua and the own-
ers of the locations where the kiosks had been
placed), or (3) requiring some form of verifiable
information regarding the usage or profitability of
the kiosks that BVC claimed to have installed. . . .
Instead, not only did Castro take a hands-off
approach to Bevilacqua’s operation, but he complied
with and perpetuated a “Chinese Wall” between
NSD and BVC regarding installation and mainte-
nance activities.
....
Castro claims that he was not told of abnormalities
at BVC until March 2004. The FTC evidence, how-
ever, establishes that numerous notices of concern
about BVC were received by Castro and NSD. . . .
[E]ven after NSD admittedly received definitive
notice from agents in November 2003 that they had
checked on the supposed location of their kiosk[s] to
find nothing there, Castro went no further than to
make inquiry of Bevilacqua, merely accepting his
explanation about the moving of the kiosk to another
location, or the lack of internet service to a particular
location. In sum, there is no room for defendants to
11688 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
claim that Castro was being duped by Bevilacqua
about there being no significant problems with the
installation of the kiosks. The facts put Castro and
High, as sophisticated businessmen in the field, on
notice of installation and other problems, and they
recklessly disregarded those warnings.
(Summ. J. Order, Sept. 29, 2006, at 10-13.) Judge George also
found that the NSD kiosk venture satisfied the criteria for
being a traditional services franchise and that Appellants had
violated the FTC’s Franchise Rule by making misleading
statements in the disclosure agreement circular provided to
customers. (Id. at 15-16.)7
After considering additional supplementary briefing on the
issue, the district court further found that the $375,000 in
legal fees Appellants had paid Benice were derived from the
fraudulent kiosk sales. The court determined that Benice had
negotiated his fee arrangement after receiving notice that
“there was reason to believe that [Appellants] had violated the
[FTC] Act and Franchise Rule” and that Appellants had failed
to rebut evidence that Benice “knew that the funds were trans-
ferred from accounts that were the very subject of the FTC
settlement negotiations.” (Order, Sept. 17, 2007 at 1-2.)
Under those circumstances, the court said, it could not “accept
that defense counsel’s fee arrangements were made in good
faith.” (Id. at 2.) Finding that the funds were indeed traceable
to Appellants’ wrongful conduct, the court imposed a con-
structive trust and ordered Benice to return $238,300 in con-
sumer funds to the FTC. Because, prior to March 24, 2006,
7
The FTC urges that we affirm the district court’s order without reach-
ing the issue of liability under the FTC Act by recognizing the Franchise
Rule violations as an unchallenged alternative basis for the district court’s
decision. We may affirm the grant of summary judgment on any basis sup-
ported by the record and need not reach each ground relied upon by the
district court. Newton v. Diamond, 388 F.3d 1189, 1192 (9th Cir. 2004).
Without questioning the merits of the FTC’s argument, we elect to address
the substantive arguments Appellants have raised before this court.
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11689
“there ha[d] been some question regarding whether counsel
for [Appellants] would be entitled to payment of their reason-
able fees from frozen assets,” the court, in equity, permitted
Benice to retain the fees he had earned up to that date in the
amount of $136,700. (Id.)8
The court entered final judgment against Defendants on
March 5, 2009. The order provided that the Corporate Appel-
lants, Charles Castro and Gregory High, were jointly and sev-
erable liable for more than $18.8 million “as equitable
monetary relief to redress consumer injury.” (Final J., Mar. 5,
2009, at 8-9.) The order also directed Benice to segregate
$238,300 and to render the funds to the FTC within 10 days
of receiving actual notice of final judgment. (Id. at 11-12.)
According to the FTC, Benice has not yet delivered the funds
as ordered. Defendants filed a timely Notice of Appeal on
April 3, 2009.
DISCUSSION
I. Summary Judgment Against Individual Appellants
Appellants first argue that the district court improperly
granted summary judgment on the issue of whether Castro
and High were personally liable for equitable monetary relief.9
8
The court explained that its calculation was based on an hourly rate of
$300 multiplied by the number of hours Benice billed up until March 24,
2006, the date by which the court determined Benice should have had
“clear notice” that Appellants’ assets would be subject to equitable relief.
(Order, Sept. 17, 2007, at 1-3; Order Jan. 7, 2009, at 1-2.) As discussed
briefly in the next section, Appellants also take issue with this calculation,
saying the court should have calculated fees based on an hourly rate of
$450.
9
Appellants do not take issue with the district court’s determination that
both Castro and High are liable for injunctive relief under the FTC Act.
Individual liability for injunctive relief under the Act has no mental state
requirement, and Appellants do not dispute that the FTC has proven the
two necessary elements: “(1) that [NSD] committed misrepresentations or
11690 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de
novo to determine whether, viewing the evidence in the light
most favorable to the non-moving party, there are genuine
issues of material fact and whether the lower court correctly
applied the relevant substantive law. Olsen v. Idaho State Bd.
of Med., 363 F.3d 916, 922 (9th Cir. 2004). For the reasons
explained below, we affirm.
A. Individual Liability Under the FTC Act
[1] Section 5 of the FTC Act prohibits deceptive acts or
practices in or affecting commerce and imposes injunctive
and equitable liability upon the perpetrators of such acts. 15
U.S.C. § 45(a). Businesses and individuals may cause con-
sumer harm as contemplated by the FTC Act in a variety of
ways. See FTC v. Neovi, Inc., ___F.3d___, 2010 WL
2365956, at *1, 4-5 (9th Cir. June 15, 2010) (affirming sum-
mary judgment against a software marketer that had shown a
“profound lack of diligence” in response to a “prodigious
number of [consumer] complaints” regarding fraudulent use
of its software). In order to establish individual liability to
make equitable restitution under the FTC Act, the FTC must
prove that an individual “had knowledge that the corporation
or one of its agents engaged in dishonest or fraudulent con-
duct, that the misrepresentations were the type upon which a
reasonable and prudent person would rely, and that consumer
injury resulted.” FTC v. Pub’l Clearing House, Inc., 104 F.3d
1168, 1170 (9th cir. 1997) (internal quotation marks omitted)
(emphasis added). Only the first element—knowledge—is
disputed here. The FTC may establish knowledge by showing
that the individual defendant “had actual knowledge of mate-
omissions of a kind usually relied on by a reasonably prudent person,
resulting in consumer injury, and (2) that [both Castro and High] partici-
pated directly in the acts or practices or had authority to control them.”
FTC v. Pub’l Clearing House, Inc., 104 F.3d 1168, 1170 (9th Cir. 1997)
(quoting FTC v. Am. Standard Credit Sys., Inc., 874 F.Supp. 1080, 1087
(C.D. Cal. 1994)).
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11691
rial misrepresentations, [was] recklessly indifferent to the
truth or falsity of a misrepresentation, or had an awareness of
a high probability of fraud along with an intentional avoid-
ance of the truth.” Id. (quoting FTC v. Am. Standard Credit
Syst., Inc., 874 F.Supp. 1080, 1089 (C.D. Cal. 1994)). The
FTC is not required to show that the defendant actually
intended to defraud consumers. Id. As this court has previ-
ously observed:
Questions involving a person’s state of mind, e.g.,
whether a party knew or should have known of a
particular condition, are generally factual issues
inappropriate for resolution by summary judgment.
However, where the palpable facts are substantially
undisputed, such issues can become questions of law
which may be properly decided by summary judg-
ment. But summary judgment should not be granted
where contradictory inferences may be drawn from
such facts, even if undisputed.
Braxton-Secret v. A.H. Robins Co., 769 F.2d 528, 531 (9th
Cir. 1985) (internal citations omitted). Thus, the question we
address here is whether the undisputed facts of this case admit
of some reasonable inference other than the conclusion that
Castro and High acted with either (1) actual knowledge, (2)
reckless indifference to truth or falsity, or (3) an awareness of
a high probability of fraud and an intentional avoidance of the
truth with respect to any of the admitted misrepresentations.
We concur with the district court that the undisputed facts
admit of no other inference.
B. Appellants’ Personal Knowledge
[2] Appellants attest to numerous efforts that, they claim,
Bevilacqua undertook to conceal the full scope of BVC’s mal-
feasance from NSD. They also point to Castro’s cooperation
with law enforcement as evidence that Castro and High were
merely unwitting participants in Bevilacqua’s fraud. Appel-
11692 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
lants contend that the district court improperly disbelieved or
ignored this evidence when it granted the FTC’s summary
judgment motion. To the contrary, we conclude that the dis-
trict judge drew all reasonable inferences in the Appellants’
favor and assumed that both Castro and Gregory High were,
as they claimed, not privy to every detail or contour of the
fraud committed by Bevilacqua and BVC. That assumption
does not, however, preclude a finding that both men were
aware—as they in fact admitted—that many of NSD’s repre-
sentations regarding kiosk operation, installation, and profit-
ability were false or misleading. For example, Castro testified
that NSD’s repeated predictions of dramatic growth made him
“want to choke.” He acknowledged Bevilacqua’s private con-
fession that the achievement of his installation projections
was all but impossible, as BVC was already far behind in
meeting its installation obligations and had only limited cash
reserves. High also admitted that he knew of substantial prob-
lems and delays in BVC’s installation of kiosks. High was
responsible for assigning kiosk locations to consumers, and in
that position, regularly received reports from BVC acknowl-
edging that kiosks were not being timely installed in assigned
sites.
[3] Castro also implicitly acknowledged that Appellants
knew the revenue projections disseminated by NSD were
unsupported and misleading. Appellants do not dispute that
they distributed promotional materials that promised a rate of
return, on average, of some $1,100 per month from kiosk
machines, and predicted that well-placed machines would
ultimately generate more than $1,000 per day.10 Appellants
10
Appellants now contend their revenue projections were based on
third-party market research and reasonable predictions about the growth of
the kiosk business model. They also point to passages in their business
offering documents, which purport to disclaim the profit representations,
stating, inter alia: “Actual results vary from unit to unit and NSD cannot
estimate the results of any particular business.” As the district court cor-
rectly determined, however, there is no evidence that all of NSD’s custom-
ers or potential customers were, in fact, provided with these fine-print
disclaimers. In fact, the FTC’s evidence shows that not all purchasers
signed or received these documents.
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11693
also acknowledge that they promoted and disseminated
BVC’s management agreement, which promised minimum
revenue payments based, in part, on these projections. In his
deposition, Castro conceded that it was “not reasonable” for
customers to expect that any given machine was “going to do
$1,000 a month.” He admitted that he knew of no machine,
no matter how well-placed, that was capable of generating
over $400 per month.11 This admission demonstrates that the
$1,000 per day claim was not only overstated or reflective of
atypical results; it was plainly unreasonable, given the state of
NSD’s kiosk deployment and revenue reports. See FTC v.
Transnet Wireless Corp., 506 F. Supp. 2d 1247, 1267-68
(S.D. Fla. 2007) (holding that nearly identical revenue projec-
tions for internet kiosks were material misrepresentations
under the FTC Act). Yet NSD repeatedly disseminated these
material misrepresentations, and Castro himself approved
advertising materials that set forth these claims. This undis-
puted evidence supports only one conclusion: that Appellants
had actual knowledge that at least some of NSD’s representa-
tions were false and potentially misleading.
Moreover, throughout the relevant period, Castro and High
also received numerous agent and customer complaints
exposing that kiosks were not, in fact, located at the sites
where BVC had represented them to be. Appellants have
never disputed the authenticity of the voluminous customer
complaint record compiled by the FTC in this case. Castro
warned Bevilacqua that the recurring complaints were becom-
ing a “huge issue” and acknowledged that some of the com-
plaints echoed his own concerns and suspicions about BVC’s
capabilities. For his part, High was actively complicit in con-
cealing the non-installation of kiosks from NSD’s customers.
He admitted to assigning customers to kiosk locations that
were far from where they lived (and, hence, more difficult for
11
In fact, the reality was even worse than Castro acknowledged. The
undisputed evidence is that even those few NSD’s machines that were
actually operational generated almost no money at all.
11694 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
customers to visit and discover as fraudulent). Despite aware-
ness of this “huge issue,” neither High nor Castro ever made
any effort to restrain NSD’s sales efforts or to disclose to the
public that NSD was having difficulty meeting its installation
obligations. Nor did they seek to independently confirm
whether the units that NSD promised to provide for its cus-
tomers did, in fact, exist at all.
[4] Even assuming that Castro and High believed Bevilac-
qua’s repeated excuses and deceptions as they now claim,
Appellants are not relieved of personal liability. The FTC Act
also imposes liability upon individuals who act with “reckless
indifference” to truth or falsity.12 In its sales agreements, NSD
assumed an affirmative contractual obligation to locate and
obtain sites for its customers’ kiosk business opportunities.
The company also assumed an obligation to ensure that those
kiosks ultimately became operational in a timely manner.
Though it delegated the work of manufacturing and installing
kiosks to BVC, NSD remained solely responsible for fulfill-
ing its contractual duties. In this light, Appellants’ failure to
investigate numerous consumer complaints and their deliber-
ate construction of a “Chinese wall” between NSD and BVC
rises to the level of reckless indifference.
[5] In the face of numerous warning signs—multiple cus-
tomer complaints, admitted delays, BVC’s suspicious finan-
cial practices, and Bevilacqua’s false statements—Castro and
High failed to undertake even modest due diligence on behalf
of their customers. They never sought to independently verify
any of Bevilacqua’s fraudulent claims about kiosk sites or
12
“While ‘the term recklessness is not self-defining,’ the common law
has generally understood it in the sphere of civil liability as conduct violat-
ing an objective standard: action entailing ‘an unjustifiably high risk of
harm that is either known or so obvious that it should be known.’ ” Safeco
Ins. Co. of Am. v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 68 (2007) (quoting Farmer v. Bren-
nan, 511 U.S. 825, 836 (1994)); see also RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TORTS
§ 500 (1965) (recklessness entails the creation of an unreasonable risk of
harm by the breach of some legal duty).
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11695
revenue. They did not require written confirmation from BVC
that kiosks were in fact installed as reported. They did not
request an independent audit of BVC’s financial records.
They failed to review or confirm the existence of contracts
that Bevilacqua claimed to have with desirable kiosk loca-
tions, and they did not visit specific sites in order to confirm
BVC’s representations that kiosks were operational. There
were myriad red flags that would have led a reasonable person
to suspect that something was amiss at BVC, such that the
company’s ability to provide for the timely installation of
functional kiosks was seriously undermined. Despite their
contractual obligations to provide operational kiosks for their
customers, Castro, High, and NSD continued to turn a blind
eye toward the problems at BVC and sold the fraudulent busi-
ness opportunities to new investors faster than ever. We agree
with the district court that “by not crossing [the Chinese wall
they perpetuated] when, in fact, NSD had promised to provide
customers with a functioning kiosk, Castro, High, and NSD,
as a matter of law, were recklessly indifferent to the truth or
falsity of the representations it was making to consumers.”
(Summ. J. Order, Sept. 29, 2006, at 11.) The district court
properly entered summary judgment in favor of the FTC on
this issue.
II. Imposition of Constructive Trust Upon Attorneys’
Fees
We next address whether the district court committed
reversible error by imposing a constructive trust upon
$238,300 in fees that Castro paid to defense counsel Jeffrey
Benice. For the reasons explained below, we affirm the dis-
trict court’s order.
A. Applicable Law
[6] The FTC Act endows the district court with broad
authority to “ ‘grant any ancillary relief necessary to accom-
plish complete justice,’ ” including the power to compel the
11696 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
payment of restitution to injured consumers. FTC v. Ste-
fanchik, 559 F.3d 924, 931 (9th Cir. 2009) (quoting FTC v.
Pantron I Corp., 33 F.3d 1088, 1102 (9th Cir. 1994)). Consis-
tent with the Act’s expansive statutory authorization, this
court reviews a district court’s grant of equitable relief under
the FTC Act only for abuse of discretion or the erroneous
application of legal principles. See FTC v. Pantron I Corp., 33
F.3d, 1088, 1102 (9th Cir. 1994). Similarly, factual findings
relating to the payment of attorneys’ fees are also reversed
only for clear error. See, e.g., Berkla v. Corel Corp., 302 F.3d
909, 917 (9th Cir. 2002); FTC v. Assail, Inc., 410 F.3d 256,
262 (5th Cir. 2005).
[7] Constructive trust is a form of remedy that is “flexibly
fashioned in equity to provide relief where a balancing of
interests in the context of a particular case seems to call for
it.” In re N. Am. Coin & Currency, Ltd., 767 F.2d 1573, 1575
(9th Cir. 1985). It is a creature of the common law, rather than
any federal statute. Id. Thus, while the FTC Act’s broad
authorization of equitable remedies is the immediate source of
the district court’s power to fashion relief in this case, we also
look to common law principles of equity to determine
whether the district court’s application of constructive trust
constitutes legal error. At common law, where property has
been obtained by fraud, a court in equity “has jurisdiction to
reach the property either in the hands of the original wrong-
doer, or in the hands of any subsequent holder” and to convey
that property to “the one who is truly and equitably entitled
to the same.” Harris Trust & Sav. Bank v. Salomon Smith
Barney, Inc., 530 U.S. 238, 251 (2000) (quoting Moore v.
Crawford, 130 U.S. 122, 128 (1889)). “Importantly, that a
transferee was not ‘the original wrongdoer’ does not insulate
him from liability for restitution.” Id. If, however, an innocent
third-party transferee purchases ill-gotten assets for value, in
good faith, and without actual or constructive notice of the
wrongdoing, the third-party transferee cannot be held liable
for restitution and the assets are not the proper subject of a
constructive trust. Id. Known as the bona fide purchaser rule,
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11697
this exception grants an innocent transferee a higher right to
the obtained assets than the victim of the original fraud. See
id.; CRS Recovery, Inc. v. Laxton, 600 F.3d 1138, 1144-45
(9th Cir. 2010) (discussing the bona fide purchaser principle
in the context of California’s law of conversion).
The parties’ arguments before this court rely on these com-
mon law principles. First, Appellants contend, the monies
paid to Benice are not the proper subject of a constructive
trust because the evidence before the district court does not
establish that the funds were the proceeds of an unlawful
scheme. Second, Appellants urge, even assuming the fees
were paid with ill-gotten funds, Benice was a bona fide pur-
chaser because he supplied legal services in a good-faith
exchange and lacked notice that the funds were derived from
unlawful business practices. The FTC disputes these conten-
tions. The district court found that Benice had been paid with
tainted funds, that the fee arrangements were not made in
good faith, and that Benice had sufficient notice to preclude
his status as a bona fide purchaser. We conclude that those
findings are supported by the evidence and that Judge
George’s conclusions are sound.
B. The Source of the Funds
The district court found that the FTC had presented clear
and convincing evidence that the funds Castro paid to Benice
were derived from the unlawful kiosk scheme. Using several
methods of analysis, FTC financial expert Kenneth Kelley
determined that all of the funds withdrawn from the custodial
accounts and used to pay Benice could be traced to NSD and
the other Castro companies. According to Kelley’s analysis,
90 percent of the funds were traceable to NSD’s accounts and
revenue from the kiosk scheme. The remaining funds were all
attributable to at least one of the Castro companies, but
because those entities regularly transferred money to one
another and paid each others’ expenses, Kelley could not state
conclusively which company initially generated the funds.
11698 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
[8] Based on the FTC’s evidence, the district court con-
cluded that all of Castro’s businesses formed a common enter-
prise and were co-participants in the unlawful practices.
Appellants call this finding “meritless” and insist that,
because the FTC failed to demonstrate with exact precision
which funds initially came from which companies, the district
court erred in imposing a valid constructive trust. Far from
being meritless, however, the district court’s conclusion
appears eminently reasonable. Our cases hold that entities
constitute a common enterprise when they exhibit either verti-
cal or horizontal commonality—qualities that may be demon-
strated by a showing of strongly interdependent economic
interests or the pooling of assets and revenues. See SEC v.
R.G. Reynolds Enters., Inc., 952 F.2d 1125, 1130 (9th Cir.
1991); Brodt v. Bache & Co., Inc., 595 F.2d 459, 460 (9th Cir.
1978). In this case, the FTC presented evidence of both. The
undisputed evidence is that Castro’s companies pooled
resources, staff, and funds; they were all owned and managed
by Castro and his wife; and they all participated to some
extent in a common venture to sell internet kiosks.13 Thus, all
of the companies were beneficiaries of and participants in a
shared business scheme, and the common revenue generated
in the course of that scheme was the proper subject of the
court’s equitable powers under the FTC Act.
[9] The remedy of constructive trust was appropriate here
despite the fact that the res of that trust encompassed funds
that had been commingled among several participants in the
same unlawful enterprise. The FTC presented substantial evi-
dence that traced the custodial account funds to Appellants’
statutory violations, and the district court did not err when it
fashioned equitable relief based on this evidence.
C. Bona Fide Purchaser Rule
13
See supra note 6.
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11699
Appellants also invoke the bona fide purchaser rule and
contend that Benice is entitled to his full fee because he
accepted the ill-gotten money “in good faith and after a dili-
gent review of the circumstances.” (Appellant’s Br. at 35.)
The district court properly concluded, however, that Appel-
lants had failed to establish that Benice acted with good faith
and without notice, that is, he did not discharge his duty of
inquiry.
[10] An attorney is an “officer of the court” who, by virtue
of his or her professional position, undertakes certain “special
duties . . . to avoid conduct that undermines the integrity of
the adjudicative process.” ABA MODEL RULES, Rule 3.3, Cmt.
2. These special duties apply with full force to the manner by
which an attorney may collect his or her fee. See Commodity
Futures Trading Comm’n v. Co Petro Marketing Group, 700
F.2d 1279, 1285 (9th Cir. 1983) (“As an officer of the court,
[attorney] was under a duty to inquire as to the exact terms of
the district court’s decision before depositing [his fee] check
[in violation of a contemporaneous injunction].”) For exam-
ple, it is well established that funds derived from criminal
activity and used to pay attorneys’ fees may be “subject to
forfeiture, even in the attorney’s hands.” In re Moffitt, Zwerl-
ing & Kemler, P.C., 846 F.Supp. 463, 474 (E.D. Va. 1994),
aff’d United States v. Moffitt, Zwerling & Kemler, P.C., 83
F.3d 660, 665 (4th Cir. 1996); see also In re Bell & Beckwith,
838 F.2d 844 (6th Cir. 1988) (attorney not entitled to bona
fide purchaser status where the circumstances surrounding the
payment of his fees were sufficient to place him on notice that
client’s funds were obtained by fraud). Extending this ratio-
nale to fees paid with the proceeds of unlawful business prac-
tices under the FTC Act, the Fifth Circuit stated:
[T]here is a clear principle that an attorney is not
permitted to be willfully ignorant of how his repre-
sentation is funded . . . . [W]hen taken together, [the
legal authorities] teach that when an attorney is
objectively on notice that his fees may derive from
11700 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
a pool of frozen assets, he has a duty to make a good
faith inquiry into the source of those fees. Failure to
make such an inquiry in the face of this duty will
result in disgorgement of the funds.
Assail, 410 F.3d at 265. The “clear principle” recognized in
Assail and Bell & Beckwith is applicable here: an attorney is
not permitted to be willfully ignorant of how his fees are paid.
Though the funds in this case were not yet subject to an asset
freeze at the time of the fee arrangement, the record clearly
demonstrates sufficient facts to trigger Benice’s duty of
inquiry as to the source of the funds. See Assail, 410 F.3d at
266; Bell & Beckwith, 838 F.2d at 849-50.
At the time that Castro and Benice entered into the flat fee
arrangement, Appellants and their previous counsel had been
engaged for months in protracted negotiations with the FTC.
The FTC had provided Castro with a draft complaint alleging
violations of the FTC Act and the Franchise Rule, and Castro
had provided the FTC with sworn financial statements,
revealing that almost all of his liquid assets were housed in
the custodial accounts from which Benice was ultimately
paid. Benice himself admits that he “understood [Appellants]
were in a dispute with the FTC and that the FTC could even-
tually take action against them.” In oral argument before this
court, Benice went even further, acknowledging that he was
aware of the draft complaint and stating that his co-counsel
Marc Forsythe had discussed the status of the FTC negotia-
tions with Peter Spivack. “I knew exactly the status [of
Appellants’ negotiations with the FTC],” Benice told this
court. Benice, however, never spoke personally with Spivack.
Nevertheless, Benice claims that he independently concluded
that the money used to pay his fee came not from the alleged
violations of the FTC Act but from Castro’s legitimate busi-
ness activities. Benice admits that his independent conclu-
sions were based primarily on information provided by Castro
himself.
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11701
[11] Thus, on the one hand, Benice claims to have satisfied
his professional obligations by undertaking an inquiry as to
the source of the funds. On the other, however, he asserts that
he learned of no circumstances in the course of his inquiry
that were sufficient to place him on notice that his fees were
potentially derived from the alleged unlawful practices. The
evidence satisfies us that an objectively reasonable and dili-
gent inquiry would have revealed that Appellants’ assets were
potentially tainted by their participation in the kiosk scheme.
See Assail, 410 F.3d at 266; Moffitt, 846 F.Supp. at 474-75.
Benice claims to have relied on Castro’s representations, but
the draft complaint and other materials that Benice was aware
of should have cast doubt on the reliability of Castro’s state-
ments. All of Castro’s businesses were named in the draft
complaint as participants in the unlawful scheme, and the mil-
lions of dollars generated in the course of that scheme were
Appellants’ primary alleged source of income. Benice also
claims to have reviewed Appellants’ financial documents,
which would have confirmed not only that the kiosk scheme
was the primary source of revenue for Castro’s companies but
also that the custodial accounts from which Benice was paid
contained almost all of Castro’s liquid assets. Castro had pro-
vided sworn statements to the FTC regarding the custodial
account funds, and Benice knew or should have known that
these funds were the subject of Castro’s ongoing settlement
negotiations with the FTC.
[12] A diligent review of the circumstances—such as the
one Benice claims to have undertaken—would also have
revealed what claims were asserted against Appellants and
which of Appellants’ assets were likely subject to disgorge-
ment if the FTC prevailed on those claims. In light of the
FTC’s allegations that the custodial funds were derived from
a fraudulent scheme, Benice could not sufficiently discharge
his duty of inquiry merely by relying on the contrary repre-
sentations of his client. See Assail, 410 F.3d at 266 (“Once on
notice, [attorney] needed to do far more than simply take his
client at his word that the fees were not tainted. . . . Trusting
11702 FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT
[his client’s] truthfulness unconditionally was especially
unreasonable considering that he was accused of fraud, an
allegation going directly to his honesty.”). Benice’s accep-
tance of a nonrefundable $375,000 flat fee under such circum-
stances unwittingly provided Castro with a vehicle to transfer
a substantial portion of his assets seemingly out of the FTC’s
reach. Just eight days after secretly emptying the custodial
accounts, Castro made a $375,000 cash payment to Benice.
That Castro failed to disclose the withdrawal of the custodial
account funds to the FTC supports the inference that Castro
was deliberately attempting to insulate or conceal his assets in
advance of an asset freeze. Even if Benice notified the district
court and the FTC of the terms of his retainer agreement, and
did not knowingly act to facilitate Castro’s attempted obfusca-
tion, we cannot conclude that Benice’s acceptance of such a
payment was in good faith and without notice.
[13] In sum, we conclude that although Appellants’ assets
were not yet frozen when Benice accepted his fee, Benice
received sufficient notice to trigger “a duty to make a good
faith inquiry into the source of th[e] fee[ ].” Assail, 410 F.3d
at 265. Benice failed to discharge this duty because he relied
primarily on Castro’s representations and did not discuss the
source of his fees with Appellants’ former counsel. Consider-
ing the totality of the circumstances, Benice’s inquiry was not
objectively reasonable. The district court’s conclusions that
Benice was not a bona fide purchaser and did not discharge
his duty of inquiry were well supported, and its order impos-
ing a constructive trust was neither an abuse of discretion nor
legally erroneous.
D. Benice’s Equitable Receipt of Fees
[14] The district court did not entirely divest Benice of his
fees in this case. Instead, the court permitted Benice to retain,
in equity, his reasonable fees for work done before Appel-
lants’ assets were frozen. In a three-sentence paragraph at the
close of their brief, Appellants assert that the district court
FTC v. NETWORK SERVICES DEPOT 11703
erred when calculating the fees granted to Benice. The court
based its calculation on a $300 hourly rate, rather than the
$450 hourly rate that Benice had initially requested. Without
elaborating, Appellants claim that the district court’s refusal
to accept the $450 hourly rate was “unsupported.” (Appel-
lant’s Br. at 50.) Appellants’ unsupported assertion does not
satisfy us that the district court erred. See Camacho v. Bridge-
port Financial, Inc., 523 F.3d 973, 980 (9th Cir. 2008) (fee
applicant bears the burden of producing evidence to support
requested rates). On this record, we hold the court did not
abuse its discretion in granting Benice a limited fee recovery
of $136,700.
CONCLUSION
We AFFIRM the decision of the district court in its
entirety.