Judge Denies SEC Request, Forces Them To Produce Hinman Speech

Ripple has scored yet another major victory, with Judge Sarah Netburn’s recent ruling against the S.E.C. 

The agency fought ferociously to keep the Hinman speech out of the courtroom, but despite this they were ordered to produce the speech, which could potentially destroy their entire case, earlier this year.

Despite the order, SEC officials and attorneys continued to claim that Hinman’s speech contained sensitive information protected on grounds of deliberative process privilege.

Deliberative process privilege is a legal shield which allows agencies of the government to forego transparency in order to protect details of their methods and investigative procedures from potential bad actors.

DPP is predicated on the idea that information relating to internal processes can be used by malicious actors to circumvent government agencies and regulation.

This opaque protection was pierced by Netburn’s recent ruling, which compelled the SEC to produce the documents for the legal proceedings.

Here is the latest development in the ongoing Ripple vs S.E.C. lawsuit:

Ripple Scores 'Very Big Win' as Judge Rejects SEC's Motion to Reconsider in DPP Ruling

The court ordered the regulator to hand over some documents, including a draft of William Hinman's infamous Ethereum speech, which the SEC said was protected by the DPP pic.twitter.com/YgqXElr49P

— 🇳🇱 MACKATTACK XRP 🇳🇱 (@MackAttackXRP) April 14, 2022

“the [@SECGov] ethics office explicitly told [#SEC official William] Hinman, per the documents, to not be in any contact with Simpson Thacher for any reason. However, Hinman met with Josh Bonnie, a partner at Simpson Thacher, at least three times after that warning” https://t.co/Ac6qDOPd4D

— Robert J. MacLean (@rjmaclean) April 8, 2022

The Block featured Netburn’s opinion:

“The SEC seeks to have it both ways, but the Speech was either intended to reflect agency policy or it was not,” said the order. “Having insisted that it reflected Hinman’s personal views, the SEC cannot now reject its own position.

The Speech was not an agency communication, and the deliberations as to its content are not protected by the privilege.”

 

The latest documents released by @EMPOWR_us prove that Bill Hinman, who gave the $ETH free pass speech, had a criminal financial conflict warning from the @SECGov ethics staff — and ignored it. @JohnEDeaton1 on @ThinkingCrypto1 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/MTXDPdeMFA

— CryptoLaw (@CryptoLawUS) April 13, 2022

Thanks James for good news. A largely great result for Ripple. The underlined part from the decision shows why it is good. The drafts of the Hinman speech and communications about them must be disclosed. There will be some limited redactions. Production of the documents compelled https://t.co/MYDCYPF5ZH pic.twitter.com/9OoCAXpAZG

— bill (@Belisarius2020) April 11, 2022

Daily Hodl reminds us:

In the speech, Hinman said Ethereum (ETH) was not a security.

The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, alleging that the company sold XRP as an unregistered security, a position the regulator maintains to this day.

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