“Twitter missed the 5pm deadline,” the document said. “Although Twitter timely produced some records, its production was incomplete.”
Ultimately, it took Twitter until 8:06 pm on February 9 to produce all the data that the government sought. According to the court, that was three days late. Twitter tried and failed to argue its way out of sanctions by saying that it acted in good faith to supply information as quickly as possible.
“Twitter contends that it ‘substantially complied with the [w]arrant’ because ‘there was nothing [it] could have done to comply faster’ after the court issued the February 7 order,” the court document said.
The court rejected Twitter’s “good faith” arguments, mainly because the company blew past the original deadline and repeatedly failed to raise concerns at earlier opportunities.
On March 3, the court denied Twitter’s attempt to modify or vacate the nondisclosure order, found Twitter in civil contempt, and imposed the $350,000 contempt sanction.
While Twitter appealed the decision, the company “paid the $350,000 sanction into an escrow account maintained by the district court clerk’s office.”
The appeal process stretched on for months. On June 20, the government modified its nondisclosure order to “permit Twitter to notify the former President of the existence and contents of the warrant.” That meant that “the only limitation on the disclosure would be” for Twitter “to withhold the identity of the case agent assigned to the investigation.”
Meanwhile, Twitter was late in its attempts to oppose the sanctions formula. The court opinion said that Twitter’s counsel “belatedly” pointed out that “roughly one month of noncompliance” would have “required Twitter to pay a sanction greater than ‘the entire world’s gross domestic product.’”
Twitter continued challenging the nondisclosure order and the sanctions, but the court rejected most of its arguments and ultimately affirmed the contempt sanctions, issuing its opinion on July 18.
“Twitter never raised any objection to the sanctions formula, despite having several opportunities to do so,” Pan wrote in the opinion. “The company thus appeared to acquiesce to the formula. Moreover, the $350,000 sanction ultimately imposed was not unreasonable, given Twitter’s $40 billion valuation and the court’s goal of coercing Twitter’s compliance.”