Perfect storm, page-76

Actually you can infer that from his report as the sentence structure indicates a completion of the deliberation as it were : 'The Court of Appeal had already deliberated on the case and is expected to deliver its judgement soon.'
The use of 'had already' indicates completion as well as 'expected to deliver its judgement' indicating a judgement has been reached.

My only concern here is what the writers source is and how accurate it is as I still dont see how the writer would know. But as a sentence by itself the language structure infers that the deliberation is not ongoing

At least this banter passes the time i guess