Skillz Platform Inc. v. AviaGames Inc.

I. BACKGROUND

23 On August 23, 2023, the Court ordered that discovery be reopened for the purpose of 24 investigating AviaGames’ use of “bots”—that is, non-human, non-real-time players. ECF No. 25 224. In the course of discovery, Skillz levied allegations that AviaGames had engaged in a crime 26 or fraud in using and concealing its use of bots. See ECF No. 307 at 4. These allegations caused 27 AviaGames’ executives, Vickie Chen and Peng Zhang, to retain separate criminal defense counsel 1 on October 3, 2023. Id. 2 During Chen’s deposition on October 20, 2023, she invoked her Fifth Amendment right 3 not to testify, in part because her newly retained criminal defense counsel, who worked diligently 4 to familiarize himself with the matter, was “not able to familiarize [him]self sufficiently with the 5 case” due to the large number of documents, the large number of documents in Mandarin, and the 6 complexity of the matter. ECF No. 581-3 at 12:14–19. On November 21, 2023, Chen hired 7 additional Mandarin-fluent counsel, who reviewed the documents in this case. ECF No. 577-4 8 (“Liu Decl.”) ¶¶ 3–5. On December 22, 2023, Chen notified her counsel that she…