It’s been a while now that in an ongoing lawsuit, Ripple was continuously requesting its opponent, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), to provide the draft of the Hinman 2018 speech. But the SEC refused to provide it.
Recently, the SEC requested the court to keep the Hinman documents private, saying that it was not the time to reveal the documents to the public. But Ripple believes it will be a shred of major evidence to win the case against SEC. The crypto community believes that the SEC is just buying court time by creating doubts about whether the regulator is hiding something.
Stuart Alderoty, General Counsel at Ripple, said it was worth fighting to get major evidence. He tweeted, “Over 18 months and 6 court orders, we finally have the Hinman documents. Meanwhile the documents remain confidential at the SEC’s insistence”
The Hinman documents contain a speech made by the former SEC director William Hinman that he made at the Yahoo markets summit held in June 2018. He reportedly said that the native token of Ethereum is not a security. At that time, there was still no clear guidance from the US regulator body on how they classify digital assets.
Why does the SEC have to hide?
In December 2022, the financial regulatory body filed its motion to seal certain documents in connection with the motions for summary judgment. The SEC requested district judge Analisa Torres that “The firm respectfully maintains that the Hinman Speech Documents are protected by privilege.”
“But if these documents were to become part of the public record, the SEC would be foreclosed from making any such argument in the future, which would be highly prejudicial to the SEC,” the firm highlighted in the motion.
Jeremy Hogan, Ripple’s community lawyer commented on the SEC’s motion “The SEC is still arguing that the Hinman emails are privileged despite losing that issue about 100 times already. It blows my mind and makes me curious about what is in them.”
Ripple Vs SEC
Almost two years have passed since Ripple faced lawsuit filings by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC sued Ripple Labs Inc at the end of 2020 for marketing XRP tokens on its platform. The SEC stated that it comes under unregistered securities. According to CoinMarketCap, XRP price went up by 2.43% in the past seven days, currently trading at $0.35.
Why Ripple win is important to the crypto community
As per the US laws, if the SEC wins the case against Ripple, XRP will be considered as security rather than currency in the nation. It follows that similar cryptocurrencies will be considered as securities as well. So the hearing will be important to all digital asset shareholders, including blockchain developers and investors.
If the court rules in favor of Ripple, it will benefit the industry for future new innovations in blockchain technology platforms. It will ease the regulations in the US for the development of blockchains. If the decision goes against Ripple, it will lead investors to show less interest in the development of the crypto ecosystem.
Source: https://www.thecoinrepublic.com/2022/12/26/sec-is-still-not-ready-to-reveal-the-hinman-documents-to-the-public/