2023-05-18 07:03:51
A request by the SEC, the US securities regulator, to exclude the records of internal meetings following former director William Hinman’s speech from being used as evidence in any legal case has been rejected. This move is a huge win for Ripple and the crypto community.
In his June 2018 speech, the director of the former corporate finance department of the Securities and Exchange Commission he statedthat Ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, is not a security.
The SEC filed the request on Dec. 22 of last year to exclude internal emails, text messages and expert reports from legal cases following Hinman’s speech. Among other things, it has been argued that its mission supersedes the “public right of access to documents”, and “it has no significance” from the point of view of the court’s decision in the expedited procedure.
However, Judge Analisa Torres decided that the documents “are considered court documents”, which are subject to a strong presumption of public access.
“The documents of the Hinman speech would “reasonably tend to influence it [a bíróság] decision on a motion.” he added.
Judge Torres said the court also rejected the SEC’s argument that the exclusion of the documents was necessary to preserve “openness and honesty” within the SEC, stating:
“Documents of the Hinman speech are not protected by the law of privilege because they do not relate to the authority’s position, decision, or legislation.”
The court made an important decision regarding Ripple v. SEC
While the court ruled that documents from Hinman’s speech could be made public, it granted the SEC’s two other requests to withhold the names and identifying information of SEC experts and XRP investor whistleblowers, as well as the defendants’ personal and financial information.
The court also rejected some of Ripple’s requests for encryption. Among other things, they wanted to declassify Ripple’s earnings related to XRP sales and what compensation was paid to each trading platform.
Ripple saw the Hinman speech as key evidence in its legal battle with the SEC. In the years-long legal action, the SEC alleges that Ripple’s XRP sales violated US securities laws.
The price of XRP jumped on the newly published developments, rising by about 2.6%. At the time of writing, it is trading at $0.44.
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