On September 29, Ripple Labs celebrated a big upside in its ongoing lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as Judge Analisa Torres agreed with Judge Sarah Netburn and granted permission for the records produced by former SEC Director William Hinman to be released. The documents are related to a speech Hinman’s gave in June 2018, and have long been contested by the U.S. regulator.
In his infamous speech 4 years ag, Hinman emphasized that crypto token Ethereum (ETH) was not considered security which Ripple Labs has brought forward as critical evidence in the SEC case against it over the accusations that the sale of Ripple’s native token XRP violated US securities laws. Nevertheless, the relevance of the terminology used by Hinman is still to be determined, the firm says. The speech and circumstances surrounding it, as well as Hinman’s conduct leading up to it, have since caused great consternation.
Following Judge Magistrate Netburn’s ruling determining that the emails and drafts of the speech were not covered by deliberative process privilege, Judge Torres’ judgment dismissed SEC objections to release the records. The SEC subsequently asserted attorney-client privilege over the materials, which Netburn overturned in July.