International XRP Investors Take Aim At The SEC With Conflict of Interest Claim

By Kevin • February 1, 2022 8:14 pm • Comments

It has been over a year since the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs claiming that the company had raised over $1.3 billion in capital through an unregistered digital asset securities offering.

However, in late 2021, an organization called Empower Oversight filed a lawsuit against the SEC where it stated that there was a clear conflict of interest given behind the XRP lawsuit.

The organization states that it was strange that only Ripple received a lawsuit from the SEC, but a blockchain like Ethereum was not affected.

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Upon deeper discovery, it turns out that the former SEC official William Hinman had received millions of dollars in compensation when they were establishing the future guidelines on how the SEC would treat cryptocurrencies.

This former employer, as it turns out, is Simpson Thacher which has had a history of promoting Ethereum in the past.

Yahoo reports:

The lawsuit claims that Hinman said that Ethereum wasn’t a security, which caused an ETH price spike.

This was then followed by a lawsuit against Ripple Lab, leading to a sliding in the value of XRP. The lawsuit against Ripple Lab claims that XRP is a security”.

Since early January, however, news updates have been relatively quiet on both the SEC-XRP and Empower Oversight-SEC claims.

Last week, news did hit the wires, however, of the SEC obtaining more time to handle documents.

The courts gave the SEC an extension until 17th February to handle documents that could favor Ripple Lab.

Currently, there is a group of lawyers that have set up a petition for XRP holders and investors outside of the US to step in and begin an investigation into the SEC.

The petition mentions that the actions of the SEC seem to have clear conflicts of interest and should thoroughly be investigated before the lawsuit regarding Ripple proceeds.

It goes on to say that the SEC has failed to address any of these concerns which raises even more concern among the XRP community.

Attorney John Deaton is also aligned in supporting the petition as he has been compiling evidence that the SEC may be picking winners and losers based on their own personal financial interests.

FxEmpire reports:

The petition claims that “the SEC enforcement actions on cryptocurrencies have involved the appearance of improper ties and conflicts of interest among officials, and should be investigated”.

Importantly, the petition also points out that petition attorney John Deaton “has compiled evidence that SEC officials may have colluded with outside parties to regulate cryptocurrencies in line with their personal financial interests”.

Finally, according to the petition, the “SEC under Gary Gensler has also refused to address these troubling questions, resisted Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and ignored media reports”.

Earlier in the year, SEC Chair Gary Gensler had warned the crypto market of a marked increase in regulatory scrutiny.

The latest petition, coupled with Empower Oversight’s claims could put the SEC and its approach towards cryptos under the microscope. It isn’t the best timing for lawmakers, with the White House due to imminently issue an Executive Action on crypto regulation.

So far, Ripple has seen retracements since the start of 2022 in correlation to the overall broader crypto market, but investors remain optimistic about the results of the lawsuit when it ends.

A big thank you for all the non-US investors in helping to petition and make this claim!

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