But after he struck a deal with Emirates NBD to roll out his product, SpanCash, he claimed the bank

But after he struck a deal with Emirates NBD to roll out his product, SpanCash, he claimed the bank stole his proprietary technology, killed the deal and ruined his company. (Though it’s hard to feel too sorry for him-- he’s pictured in front of his house, a mansion that would put Versailles to shame. In this David-and-Goliath story, he’s a David from the 1 percent.) Bajwa sought $554 million plus punitive damages on trade secret misappropriation and misrepresentation claims. Trial began on July 26 in U.S. District Court for Central District of California. On Aug. 10, Ruemmler and Isaacson summed up their opposing positions in closing arguments. Let’s take a look. Isaacson, who did not respond to a request for comment, led with one of his strongest cards: USA! USA! “We as a country, made up of flawed people, come together as one of the greatest countries on Earth, because we are a nation of laws,” he said, according to a transcript of the proceedings. “This was about hard work and what happens when your work is destroyed and taken, how you're entitled to be treated under the laws of the United States.” For Ruemmler, the appeal was not emotional or jingoistic. It was rational all the way. Her first line: “Mr. Bajwa has come up with an interesting story, but it's not what happened.” And then, in the most matter-of-fact, conversational way, she annihilated his case. “There are at least five fatal flaws in Mr. Bajwa's case, and any one of those alone sinks his case. Any one,” she said, according to the transcript. Bajwa couldn’t prove that SpanCash was ever fully functional and commercially ready, Ruemmler said. In fact, she argued, it was never even a real product. Further, she said, Bajwa didn’t prove that the technology or platform was comprised of any trade secrets; or that Emirates Bank stole SpanCash; or that it ever used it. Finally, Bajwa didn’t prove InfoSpan suffered any damages, she said. Some of her turns of phrase are refreshingly non-lawyerly. ““Sham is going down there... It's not as if these guys were exactly rubes...This is some flimflam thing... One of the many, many dog-ate-my-homework excuses....This is an absolute double-down lie.” The overall effect: she simplified without being condescending. But there was still a hurdle for Emirates. Or as Latham’s Schecter put it in an interview, “There are some facts we wouldn’t script.” After the bank terminated its agreement with InfoSpan and demanded its investment back, Infospan’s deputy CEO, Larry Scudder, was arrested when he tried to leave the UAE. “At the Dubai Airport that day, the Dubai police arrested Mr. Scudder after he presented his passport at an electronic terminal. Police told Mr. Scudder that a charge of criminal fraud had been filed against him for $1,465,000. Mr. Scudder was handcuffed and marched through the airport and then held in police detention facilities and interrogated,” the complaint states. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_012039