Judge Eric Davis moved to sanction Fox News after the network withheld evidence in discovery, and is considering further punitive action

Delaware Judge Eric Davis sanctioned Fox News on Wednesday after the company was caught withholding evidence from Dominion’s lawyers, including recorded conversations with Trump lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.

Dominion and Fox are in the throes of a $1.6 billion dollar defamation suit over the network’s attempts to link the voting systems company to unsubstantiated allegations of election fraud. The sanction came in a pretrial hearing ahead of a high-profile jury trial slated to begin next Monday.

Abby Grossberg, a former Tucker Carlson producer who has claimed the network coerced her testimony regarding the lawsuit, reportedly created recordings of conversations she had with several Trump attorneys boosting allegations of Dominion’s involvement in voter fraud schemes. The recordings were not made available to Dominion during discovery.

In a statement provided to Rolling Stone, a Fox News spokesperson wrote that the network “produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg when we first learned it.”

Judge Davis’ sanction against the network will allow Dominion to conduct further depositions on Fox’s dime. “I am very concerned … that there have been misrepresentations to the court,” Davis reportedly said during the pretrial hearing. “This is very serious.”

Davis further indicated that he may appoint a special master to conduct a review of whether or not Fox’s lawyers made “untrue or negligent” statements regarding evidence in the case.

According to Dominion’s lawyers, Fox also misrepresented Rupert Murdoch’s position in the company, claiming the network concealed Murdoch’s role as an officer. “It’s been represented more than once to me that he’s not an officer of Fox News,” Davis said. “I need to feel comfortable that when you represent something to me, it’s the truth. I’m not very happy right now. I don’t know why this is such a difficult thing.”

Fox’s spokesperson indicated that “Rupert Murdoch has been listed as executive chairman of FOX News in our SEC filings for several years and this filing was referenced by Dominion’s own attorney during his deposition.”

Grossberg filed a pair of lawsuits in March alleging that her former employer pressured and manipulated her into giving misleading testimony to investigators. Fox initially attempted to have a gag order placed on Grossberg in order to prevent her from publicly discussing the suit, but later dropped the request.

“Based on what I understood and took away from the deposition preparation sessions I had with Fox’s legal team which were coercive and intimidating … I felt that I had to do everything possible to avoid becoming the ‘star witness’ for Dominion or else I would be seriously jeopardizing my career at Fox News and would be subjected to worse terms and conditions of employment than male employees as I understood it,” Grossberg wrote in her complaint.

According to the filing, during preparatory sessions for her deposition, Fox’s attorneys responded with “emphatical head shakes ‘no,’ [or] shook their heads whenever Ms. Grossberg answered hypothetical questions in a manner that was truthful but implicated others or needed elaboration.” Grossberg claims that the reactions from Fox’s attorneys led her to believe that she needed to avoid problematic questions or say something equivocal for Fox News to continue to ‘have her back.’”

Fox’s spokesperson told Rolling Stone that attorneys for the network had “produced the supplemental information from Ms. Grossberg when we first learned it.”

On March 31, Davis ruled in a partial summary judgment that Fox News’ statements about Dominion in the aftermath of the election were categorically false and denied the network’s effort to have the $1.6 billion defamation suit thrown out.