Blockchain firm with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Ripple The dispute and pending litigation took a new turn yesterday following a recent ruling by Judge Sarah Netburn.
Judge Netburn, SEC’s William Hinmanclaims that he has attorney-client protection/privilege against the 2018 document.
Positive Development for Ripple
of the court April 11, 2022 According to the dated decision; The SEC has been tasked with two revisions for the court to review, and the SEC also has the right to appeal the decision within two weeks.
The debate over Hinman’s testimony had been going on for months. Therefore, this decision can be considered as an important “intermediate victory” for Ripple. For some time now, Ripple has been using various methods to prove that it is not selling the native token XRP as a security. As Koinfinans.com previously reported, the SEC accused Ripple of selling XRP tokens as securities, which is a violation of US regulatory laws. That’s why the lawsuit was filed.
The 2018 William Hinman statement was one of the ways Ripple used to defend itself against the SEC’s allegations. Hinman was a former chief financial officer at the regulatory agency. In 2018, Hinman made statements about Ethereum saying that it is not a security.
Ripple, on the other hand, assumed that Hinman’s statements about Ethereum extended to Ripple’s XRP, since it shares similar features in the context of Hinman’s speech.
Despite the SEC’s request for these documents to be forwarded and produced, the regulatory agency’s attorney-client privilege was cited as the reason, and Ripple’s request was denied. However, with the latest development, Judge Netburn rejected this claim.
The SEC then claimed that the regulator had internal conversations with some of its legal counsel before Hinman gave his speech. Therefore, he stated that because Hinman is technically a client, the document should be protected under attorney-client privilege. However, Ripple did not welcome this claim, and thus, clearly opposed the claims.
After reviewing 10 sample documents on camera, Judge Netburn decided that the SEC should present the documents. The judge added that the main reason for the internal debate was not legal advice.