On September 29, U.S. Judge Analisa Torres ruled in favor of Ripple Labs in its ongoing legal struggle with the SEC, ordering the release of papers authored by former SEC employee William Hinman. Most of the papers are associated with a June 2018 speech given by Hinman at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit.
According to Hinman’s talk, ETH is not a security. Whether the speech’s phrasing will be as relevant as the firm says remains to be seen, but Ripple Labs believes it is a crucial piece of evidence in the lawsuit the SEC has launched against it, charging that sales of Ripple’s XRP violated U.S. securities laws. Many questions remain unanswered about what led up to Hinman’s speech and the circumstances around it.
Since Judge Sarah Netburn’s ruling found that the speech was not covered by deliberative process privilege, as the SEC had claimed, Judge Torres’ decision overturned SEC objections to disclosing the records. After the SEC argued the materials were protected by attorney-client privilege, Netburn ruled against them in July. Despite the SEC’s protests, Judge Torres sided with the plaintiffs.
After Ripple Labs utilized its cryptocurrency XRP to acquire capital in 2013, the SEC launched a lawsuit against the business, its CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and its former CEO Chris Larsen in December 2020. The outcome of an SEC lawsuit has the potential to create a new legal standard.
Initially, it seemed that the lawsuit was not going well for Ripple, but the business has now used several defense methods. On September 17th, applications for summary judgment were submitted in the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York by Ripple Labs and the SEC.
