SARAH NETBURN, Magistrate Judge.
On July 6, 2018, the Court issued an Opinion and Order imposing sanctions on Defendants Abdullah Bin Saleh Al-Obaid, Abdullah Mahsen Al-Turki, Adnan Basha, and Abdullah Omar Naseef (collectively, the "Charity Officials"). ECF No. 4043. On July 20, 2018, the Charity Officials filed a motion for reconsideration pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). ECF No. 4064. The Charity Officials' motion for reconsideration is DENIED.
On August 22, 2013, the Plaintiffs' Executive Committees ("PECs") served the Charity Officials with jurisdictional discovery request, which sought, among other things, the Charity Officials' passports. ECF Nos. 3750-4, 3750-5, 3750-6, 3750-7. During a conference on March 22, 2016, after the Charity Officials argued that they had substantially complied with their jurisdictional discovery obligations, the Court ordered each of the Charity Officials to produce "a sworn or affirmed certification" stating that "they have produced all documents responsive to the requests." ECF No. 3253 at 85:12-19. In June 2017, the Charity Officials sent the PECs indexes identifying documents that the Charity Officials believed were responsive to the PECs' document requests. ECF No. 3750-9 at 1. But counsel explained that because the Charity Officials "travelled on official passports, which the government retained after each trip, they do not have personal possession of those passports."
On September 7, 2017, the parties again appeared before the Court and discussed the outstanding document requests. ECF No. 3725. Addressing defense counsel, the Court stated, "I don't understand why your clients can't obtain . . . certified cop[ies] of their passports from the relevant government entit[ies]."
Following the conference, Al-Obaid and Basha produced certifications attesting that they no longer had copies of their passports. ECF No. 3750-14; ECF No. 3764 Attach. J. None of the four Charity Officials obtained or produced copies of their passports in accordance with the Court's orders. Accordingly, on October 6, 2017, the PECs filed a motion requesting that the Court impose sanctions on the Charity Officials pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(b) for failing to comply with the Court's prior orders. ECF No. 3748.
On July 6, 2018, the Court issued an Opinion and Order granting in part and denying in part the PECs' motion for sanctions. ECF No. 4043. The Court explained that it was "highly skeptical of the suggestion that Al-Obaid, Al-Turki, Basha, and Naseef are entirely unable to obtain copies of the passports, especially in light of the fact that [another similarly situated codefendant] has already produced copies of his passports."
On July 20, 2018, the Charity Officials filed a motion for reconsideration. ECF No. 4064. According to the motion, at some point after they filed their opposition to the PECs' motion for sanctions, the Charity Officials apparently learned that the Saudi government does not "retain or archive expired passports as a matter of policy and did not maintain any passports in the date range."
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b) provides that "any order or other decision, however designated, that adjudicates fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of fewer than all the parties . . . may be revised at any time before the entry of a judgment adjudicating all the claims and all the parties' rights and liabilities." Because the Court's July 6, 2018 Opinion and Order did not adjudicate any of the parties' claims in this case, Rule 54(b) is inapplicable here.
"A motion for reconsideration may not be used to advance new facts, issues or arguments not previously presented to the Court, nor may it be used as a vehicle for relitigating issues already decided by the Court."
As an initial matter, when the Court decided the PECs' motion for sanctions, the Court was well aware that the Charity Officials had submitted a formal written request to the Saudi government in an attempt to obtain copies of their passports. ECF No. 4043 at 12-13. The Court specifically acknowledged this fact in its Opinion and Order.
The Charity Officials' eventual discovery that the Saudi government did not in fact retain copies of their passports is not an adequate ground for granting their motion for reconsideration. The PECs requested that the Charity Officials produce their passports in August 2013. Thus, the Charity Officials had more than four years to contact the relevant Saudi agencies and officials to obtain copies of their passports or information about the Saudi government's passport-retention practices. On September 7, 2017, the Court gave the Charity Officials one last chance to obtain copies of their passports from the Saudi government and warned that the Court would consider sanctions if the defendants did not comply within 30 days. But the Charity Officials waited until October 10, 2017—more than 30 days after the Court's order and a few days after the PECs filed their motion to compel—to send their first formal written request to the Saudi government. ECF No. 4065 at 14. This delay in seeking the Saudi government's assistance undermines the Charity Officials' contention that they made good faith efforts to comply with their discovery obligations in a timely manner. If the Charity Officials had contacted the appropriate officials in the Saudi government earlier in the discovery process, they likely could have informed the Court—before it decided the motion for sanctions—that the Saudi government did not retain copies of the Charity Officials' passports.
Moreover, if the Charity Officials' attorneys were unfamiliar with the Saudi legal system and unable to communicate effectively with their clients and the appropriate Saudi officials, the attorneys should have promptly sought assistance from co-counsel with greater proficiency in the legal system and language. Yet defense counsel waited almost five years after the PECs served their discovery demands—and waited until after the Court imposed sanctions on the Charity Officials—to enlist the assistance of attorneys familiar with Saudi law who could communicate with the relevant individuals in Arabic.
Finally, in their opposition to the motion for reconsideration, the PECs ask the Court to "hold a hearing at which counsel who has long represented the Charity Official Defendants—Mr. [Alan] Kabat—be required to attend to answer inquiry about the period of time that he was not in contact with any Charity Official Defendant but nonetheless made representations specifically on their behalf." ECF No. 4091 at 9. In his recent declaration, Al-Turki states, "I was not aware until a few weeks ago that any attorney was trying to contact me or seek a declaration from me with respect to discovery." ECF No. 4065 at 7. Although he notes that he has "been informed that Mr. Kabat did try to make contact through intermediaries," Al-Turki states that he "had no contact by telephone or in person with any attorneys" since his departure from the Muslim World League in 2016 until July 9, 2018.
For the foregoing reasons, the Charity Officials' motion for reconsideration is DENIED. In addition, Mr. Alan Kabat, the Charity Officials' attorneys from Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss PLLC, and the appropriate representatives from the PECs are ORDERED to appear in person at the discovery conference scheduled for October 12, 2018, at 11:00 a.m. in Courtroom 110, Thurgood Marshall Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, New York, New York. The Court intends to discuss why Mr. Kabat made representations on behalf of Al-Turki and Naseef during periods of time when he was not in communication with those clients. The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 4064.