Ripple played another strong hand against the SEC this week. At the center of this new debate is a 2018 speech from the former director of the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance, Bill Hinman.
In the speech, Bill Hinman said that Ethereum was not a security. The SEC claims that this was Hinman’s personal opinion, but Ripple’s defense says that it has seen an email chain to a third party in the SEC’s privilege log which reveals that Hinman’s speech reflected SEC policy.
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This has raised serious questions as to whether Hinman lied to the court. On Friday, Judge Sarah Netburn ruled in favor of Ripple. The judge compelled the SEC to submit two documents related to the SEC’s meetings with law firms, and the email chain, including a submission explaining its privilege assertions for each of those documents by 15th October 2021.
Ripple’s attorneys are forcing the SEC to choose one of two positions; either that Hinman’s speech was his own opinion, meaning that there is no Deliberate Process Privilege (DPP) case to be made, or that Hinman’s views were policy, granting room for the DPP case to be made, but the views can be used as evidence against the SEC.
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Ripple Calls out The SEC for Neglecting RFAs
Ripple’s lawyers also called out the SEC for its negligence to review almost 30,000 Requests For Admission (RFAs). The SEC responded by saying that the requests were burdensome and that it spent 100 hours responding to 254 RFAs.
The RFAs are used to reach rapid consensus on matters between the opposing entities in a lawsuit, and responses are considered to be given under oath and can be used against the answering party in court.
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Following Ripple’s brilliant moves, the price of the digital token XRP surged 9% in less than 24 hours.
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