Attorney Jeremy Hogan, who has been a stern supporter of Ripple and XRP since the lawsuit was filed in December 2020, has highlighted the big mistake made recently by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in its lawsuit filed against Ripple, the San Francisco-based cross-border payment firm.
In a new video, Jeremy Hogan spoke on how the SEC filed a motion for the court to reconsider the unsealing of emails in relation to the speech of William Hinman, former SEC Director of Corporate Finance, about the security status of the second-largest cryptocurrency by market cap, Ethereum (ETH).
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According to Hogan, the SEC made a big blunder for saying Hinman’s comments about Ethereum could be relied upon as guidance. He said this implies that the regulator is backtracking its previous argument on the fact that Hinman’s comments were his personal opinion.
Hogan further pointed out that the last-minute decision could hurt SEC and favor Ripple Labs. He pointed out that the decision could make the Judge change her position on the fact that Hinman’s comments were his personal opinions.
Jeremy Hogan noted:
“The speech – itself and the many drafts and comments by SEC staff across different SEC divisions and offices deliberating the agency’s approach to the regulation of digital assets – show that Director Hinman and other SEC staff used the speech to provide public guidance as to how [Hinman’s division] would apply the federal securities laws to offers and sales of digital assets including Ether.
“Indeed, SEC regulations provide that Director Hinman’s public statements could be relied upon as representing the views of Corp Fin, the division he led…
“In litigation, you have to have your strategy, your theory of the case or the theory of the issue that you are arguing, and you have to stick with it. In a DUI (driving under influence) defense case, for example, your legal position may be that your guy had been drinking, but was not impaired. If that is your position, you get your client straight on it, and you do not waiver. If he gets up on the stand and says ‘Well, now that I think about it, I don’t think I drank that night,’ you are screwed…
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“The entire argument completely backtracks on what the SEC has been saying for almost the last year. What does that mean from a legal strategy standpoint? Look at what the SEC has just done. It’s not good, because it opens up the possibility that the SEC could lose both its pawn and its bishop…
“The judge has already made a very strong determination that as far as she’s concerned, the speech was Hinman’s personal opinion… Now, in this motion for reconsideration, it has given her more very similar documents to review and changed its position on the speech 180 degrees.”
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