The latest court ruling is a “very big win” for Ripple against the SEC
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn has denied the Securities and Exchange Commission’s motion for reconsideration of the Deliberate Procedural Privilege (DPP) ruling. James K. Filan, the former federal prosecutor, says this is a “really big win” for Ripple in a tweet.
As reported by U.Today, the court ordered the SEC to turn over an email with a draft of the infamous Ethereum speech that was given by former top SEC official William Hinman among other documents. Back in June 2018, Hinman said that Ether, the token underpinning the largest network, wasn’t a security, at a conference in San Francisco.
The SEC argued that these documents were protected by the DPP in order to continue withholding them. The judge, however, ruled that the personal opinions of agency staff were not protected by the privilege. Additionally, the court defined that the emails were “neither pre-decisional nor deliberative.” Ripple then filed the Motion for Reconsideration and Clarification to challenge this decision.
The SEC cannot reject its own position
In the most recent ruling, the judge says that the SEC seeks to “minimize” the fact that it has distanced itself from the speech.
SEC deliberations regarding cryptocurrency regulation were occurring separately from and alongside the speech. The judge says the plaintiff is confusing the emails that included these parallel deliberations with the emails and amendments that simply mention them.
The court has concluded that the Hinman speech was not an agency communication, which is why the deliberations are not protected by the DPP.
At the same time, the court agreed that the clarification “will help the parties”. The SEC can leave or redact some of its communications from production if they contain “a material connection” to agency proceedings.
