Lewin said civil contempt sanctions were necessary because the threat of them was enough to spur the Russian government to agree to recent talks. Those talks were unsuccessful, Lewin said, but they were proof that stronger action would move the case towards resolution.
Lamberth didn't issue an order from the bench and didn't say when he would make a decision. He asked McElvain if it would be "productive" for him to set a specific time frame before he issued an order, presumably to see if it would spur new activity, but McElvain said he could not say for sure.
This article first appeared on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
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