The ongoing U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple has taken a hit after a federal judge ruled that the public has a right to see documents that was one of the most controversial issues of the lawsuit.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ordered documents related to the highly publicized “Hinman Emails” to be unsealed for public access.
The documents include internal SEC deliberations regarding a speech by former SEC official William Hinman in 2018 when he stated in his official capacity that he believed that both Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are not securities.
Ripple says the documents are highly relevant and could reveal why the SEC appears to be picking winners and losers in the crypto industry by declaring some crypto assets as securities and not others.
The SEC had repeatedly tried to keep the Hinman documents out of court, but when Torres ruled that they should be turned over, the SEC filed a motion later in December to keep some of the contents hidden from the public.
This week, however, Torres refused the SEC’s motion, citing several precedents.
“Regardless of whether the Court ultimately determines that the Hinman Speech Documents are admissible, or whether the Court relies on the documents to rule on the summary judgments, they are court documents subject to a strong presumption of public disclosure because they are ‘relevant are for the exercise of the judicial function and useful in the legal proceedings.’ The Hinman Speech Documents’ would reasonably tend to influence [the Court’s] ruling on a motion.’ Documents are not given ‘different weights of conjecture based on the degree to which they were trusted in solving [a] movement.’
Crypto attorney James K. Filan say previous court orders indicate that the Hinman documents will be made public by June 6.
The SEC initiated the lawsuit in December 2020 alleging that Ripple has been selling XRP as an unregistered security for years.
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