“SEC Attempts to Keep Key Evidence Under Wraps in Ripple Case”
SEC’s request that was to seal the document in the Ripple Labs Case has sparked a huge amount of criticism from the community. The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has requested to seal the infamous Hinman Speech documents, claiming that they are not considered relevant to the court’s summary judgment decision.
On Dec 22, SEC filed the Motion to Seal Summary Judgment which is requesting the sealing of various information and documents, which is most notably the Hinman Speech documents.
The Hinman Speech documents also refer to the speech given by the former SEC corporation Finance Division Director William Hinman during the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in June 2018, where it was reportedly stated that Ether, the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, is not a security.
Ripple also believes that it is a vital piece of evidence that will help them in the case that will be against the U.S. regulator. Furthermore, in the latest motion, SEC said that their mission exceeds the ”public rights” to access the documents that have no relevance to the court’s summary judgment decision.
It was also requested that any reference to Hinman’s speech was to be removed from the papers of the defendant. The crypto community has criticized SEC’s stated request, with one user even suggesting that the chairman of the SEC has a secret agenda.
The document additionally requested to seal the information relating to the SEC’s expert witnesses and XRP’s investors that also submitted declarations moreover, internal SEC documents that reflected the debate and deliberation by the SEC officials. On Dec 2, weeks after Ripple Labs had filed their final submission against the SEC, which meant that the two-year legal battle may come to a possible end. On Oct 21, it was confirmed by Ripple that it had access to the Hinman Speech Documents after six court orders and 18 months, but the document remains confidential due to SEC’s insistence.
SEC was denied by the court to keep the Hinman Speech Documents confidential as the US judge called out the SEC for its hypocrisy in doing so.
