XRP Lawsuit: Judge Denies SEC Motion To Seal Hinman Documents

By Kevin • May 17, 2023 10:31 am • Comments

Ripple just scored a huge victory as the judge has just denied the SEC’s motion to seal the Hinman documents which many see as critical evidence for the case.

The SEC had previously argued that the public had no right to access these internal documents and that they had no relevance for the summary judgement decision.

However, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that these documents were considered “judicial documents” which means they are likely subject to public access.

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The judge would only make such a ruling if the court thought that the Hinman documents would affect the ruling of a motion.

With the Hinman emails soon able to be public for everyone to see, it will likely reveal for everyone who will ultimately win the lawsuit.

CoinTelegraph reports:

Judge Torres said the court has also rejected the SEC’s argument that sealing the documents is necessary to preserve “openness and candor” within the SEC, stating:

“The Hinman Speech Documents are not protected by the deliberative process privilege because they do not relate to an agency position, decision or policy.”

While the court has ruled the Hinman Speech documents will be made public, it has granted the other two requests from the SEC that asked for the redaction of names and identifying information of SEC experts and XRP investor declarants, as well as personal and financial information of the defendants.

The court also denied certain motions to seal from Ripple, including references linking Ripple’s revenues with XRP sales and the amount of compensation offered to trading platforms, among others.

Ripple has always argued since the beginning for the release of these internal Hinman documents, but the SEC had deployed many delay tactics to prevent this from happening.

Among the release of this news, the price of XRP had responded positively and had spiked almost 3% as many speculators believe that the documents will give a clearer prediction on the outcome of the lawsuit.

After all, it is the public’s perception of the case that will ultimately determine the performance of XRP in the short term and Ripple winning the case makes the fundamentals of XRP very strong in the long term.

The judge will likely still allow the SEC to redact names and personal information that is mentioned within the documents, but this will have no impact on Ripple’s case.

This may be the key piece of evidence to determine whether or not XRP is truly a security or not.

CoinDesk concludes:

“As Judge Netburn found in her order dated January 13, 2022, the Hinman Speech Documents are not protected by the deliberative process privilege because they do not relate to an agency position, decision, or policy,” Torres wrote.

“Therefore, sealing these documents would not be related to preserving ‘openness and candor’ within the agency, nor would such an interest be substantial enough to outweigh the strong presumption of public access.”

Meanwhile, Ripple tried to redact a number of documents of its own, including contractual agreements, financial information and other types of information.

The judge is allowing many of these proposed redactions, including redactions tied to the company’s financial statements and certain business information, to go through, saying she agreed with Ripple’s assertion that they’re targeted and specific.

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