In Optional Capital, Inc. v. DAS Corp. (2014) 222 Cal.App.4th 1388, after "an extremely tangled thicket of legal proceedings in both state and federal court, as well as in Switzerland," the plaintiff corporation and its attorneys sued the defendant to recover money the defendant allegedly looted from the corporate plaintiff. (Optional Capital, supra, 222 Cal.App.4th at p. 1392.) The trial court granted the defendant's special motion to strike, on the basis that the complaint for conversion and fraudulent transfer arose from a settlement agreement that resulted in the release of funds from a Swiss bank. The appellate court reversed, reasoning that the plaintiffs were not suing because of the settlement, but in order to recover money wrongfully obtained by the defendant. (Id. at pp. 1400-1401.) The court found that the complaint was not based on the protected activity of the settlement agreement because "the only connection between the settlement . . . and the plaintiffs' claims . . . is that the settlement was used as a device to permit the defendant to persuade the Swiss government to release the funds, thereby depriving the corporate plaintiff of funds to satisfy its judgment." (Id. at p. 1401.)