It was almost as if Kessler felt he had to get a knockout to secure a decision on foreign soil.
To prevent parliament from passing laws against his interests, Maliki secured a decision from the Iraqi High Court that gave him the exclusive right to draft legislation.
As part of an effort to push the India deal as quickly as possible through Congress, America's secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, vowed to give "highest priority" to the effort to secure a decision at this month's NSG meeting.
As the committee's membership has a six-to-five Conservative majority, support from the government is seen as essential to securing a decision by members to pursue an inquiry.
Now that the matter is being put before the courts, Florida authorities should make every effort to use this period to try to secure a decision as to whether state law really was violated by the ballot confusion in Palm Beach County.
Relying on a decision of this court made years ago when the statutory provisions were different from those which now apply, the petitioner and his counsel thought that if they could secure a decision from a single Circuit Judge releasing the petitioner, no appeal would lie from his decision and that thus resort to the appellate courts could be avoided.
For instance, there was no damning e-mail by analysts of the kind that got Merrill Lynch and a star analyst, Henry Blodget, into hot water for hyping internet shares to the public while saying something different internally.Might politics have helped secure a decision for the home side?
But now all eyes are on the copper chimney of the Sistine Chapel, from which the release of black smoke signals that the 115 cardinals voting to choose the new pope have not yet reached the two-thirds majority needed to secure a decision.
Foliot's delegation met with more success at the papal court; although they did not succeed in securing a decision in the king's favour, neither did the pope side with the archbishop.
Henry now had no choice but to put his great matter into Wolsey's hands, who did all he could to secure a decision in Henry's favour, even going so far as to convene an ecclesiastical court in England, with a special emissary, Lorenzo Campeggio from the Pope himself to decide the matter.
Although the protection of the registered trade mark for the beloved cube's shape was maintained by the EU IPO and the General Court of the EU, on appeal Simba Toys secured a decision in their favour from the EU's highest court, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
