The cost of XRP jumped by 6.8% over the past day. Token reacted to deviation motion judge SEC on the sealing of documents related to a 2018 speech by former regulator employee William Hinman.
At that time, the ex-director of the corporate finance department of the department declaredthat, for various reasons, Bitcoin and Ethereum are not securities.
In December 2020, the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple accusing the company of selling unregistered securities.
Fox Business later published a massive investigation into the case. The journalists came to the conclusion that the employees of the department behind the filing of the lawsuit could be affiliated with Ethereum.
A possible conflict of interest in the actions of former high-ranking officials of the Commission was also pointed out by the non-profit organization Empower Oversight.
Ripple’s lawyers spent much of the process trying to obtain documents related to Hinman’s speech and build a defense for the startup on them.
In the petition, the SEC said its mission “outweighs the right [доступа] the public” to information that is “not relevant” to the summary judgment decision.
The regulator also asked for any references to Hinman’s speech by the defendants to be “redacted” and information about agency expert witnesses and XRP holders who provided declarations be sealed. A similar requirement applies to the regulator’s internal documents “reflecting debates and discussions by officials.”
The judge disagreed with the SEC’s arguments.
“These are documents subject to a strict presumption of public access. […] They are not protected by the privilege of the deliberative process, since they are not related to the position, decision or policy of the department, she pointed out.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse called the decision a victory in the fight for transparency.
Hinman’s unedited emails will soon become public — stay tuned as lawyers work out a mechanism for this to happen.” he wrote.
Another win for transparency! Unredacted Hinman emails to be publicly available soon – stay tuned as the lawyers work through the mechanics to make that happen. https://t.co/o6puPypRHd https://t.co/qmaLVeQaP8
— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) May 16, 2023
XRP responded positively to the judge’s verdict. The daily growth of the token reached 6.8% against the background of mixed dynamics of other cryptocurrencies from the top 10 by capitalization, according to CoinGecko.
Recall, Garlinghouse estimated the firm’s legal costs for the ongoing proceedings with the SEC at $200 million.
Earlier, the Commission asked the court to reduce the civil penalty for LBRY crypto startup from $22 million to $111,614 in a previously won lawsuit.
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