Garlinghouse’s lawyers call for “sanctions” against the SEC after further inappropriate conduct
In the latest development in the increasingly contentious SEC case against Ripple, attorneys for Garlinghouse and Larsen have filed a letter condemning the conduct of the SEC and calling for immediate “sanctions” against the regulator.
The letter, published on the 24th of March, states that the SEC has not “met its burden to prove” that Dr. Metz’s latest minute “expert report” is pertinent to the trial and will not prejudice the outcome. Dr. Metz previously submitted a report to the court. But he faced criticism from other experts who said that he had not sufficiently proven that XRP price movements were driven by manipulative practices, as opposed to organic news about Ripple.
Dr. Metz, according to Garlinghouse’s letter, then wrote an unauthorized response, not only addressing the criticism, but adding entirely new opinions that were not present in the original report. This is a practice that gives unfair advantages to the prosecution in a court case like this because the defense does not have enough time to reasonably respond to any new charges.
A history of inappropriate conduct
This is not the first time the SEC’s conduct in this case has been labeled inappropriate. After Ripple’s recent motion to unseal SEC internal documents was partially granted, the SEC went to great lengths to have the requested notes redacted, supposedly to ensure that they do not unduly reflect the “author’s own thinking of the staff’s deliberations.”
The SEC’s questionable conduct and general lack of transparency “necessitate sanctions,” according to Garlinghouse’s attorneys. This scathing letter took a long time to write as Ripple has repeatedly accused the SEC of treating it unfairly in the run-up to trial and during the legal process.
