XRP Lawsuit: SEC Says It Will Protect Its “Expert” Witness At All Costs

June 26, 2022 5:15 pm Comments

A new development just happened this week regarding the lawsuit between the SEC and Ripple which will likely have more speculators question the motives of the SEC.

Previously, the SEC had pushed for their own “expert” witness which they believed could represent the opinions of all XRP holders of whether they thought XRP was a security when they first bought it.

Naturally, the Ripple legal team had objected to that as such a claim would likely be inaccurate and would likely be biased given that the SEC chose this “expert” themselves.

Now, it seems that the SEC is now saying that it will protect their witness at all costs from all forms of harassment that he is facing.

Retail investors are now once again disappointed that the SEC cares more about protecting this expert than the interests of all retail XRP holders which they were supposed to do.

AMBcrypto shares the details:

This move comes on the heels of testimony from an expert SEC witness – Patrick B. Doody – who reported on what information ‘reasonable’ XRP holders relied on while buying the token. To protect the expert, the SEC asserted,

“The proposed redactions to the Response are narrowly tailored to serve the “higher value” of protecting witness safety in light of the likelihood that past harassment and threats will continue in the absence of such steps.”

Ergo, the SEC sought to seal ‘footnote 1 of the Response‘, which includes information about the substance of the Expert’s report. The remaining proposed redactions to the Response relate to information about the threats and harassment of the Expert outlined in the ‘SEC opposition bet’.

This might be the key reason, the proposed redactions are ‘tailored to serve that interest.’

Jeremy Hogan also commented publicly on Twitter regarding this matter and commented that the agency apparently cares more about this much more than it should.

Essentially, the SEC wants to protect their expert from any potential damages that may occur as a result of his participation in this lawsuit.

The development continues to be overall negative as this will likely be used as an excuse once again to delay progress in the lawsuit.

Members of the crypto community have also commented that there was no “actual harassment” of the witness himself other than major disapproval that this witness would represent the thoughts of 65k XRP holders.

As a result, some believe that this may be an attempt by the SEC to change the narrative and portray itself as the victim in the lawsuit.

TheCoinRepublic concludes:

The proposed redactions designed to serve that interest could be the major reason.

The purpose of the SEC is to protect the respective expert from any kind of potential damages.

Jeremy Hogan raised a question on the motive of SEC and said something along the lines that only if SEC also cared about the protection of retail XRP holders!

The current crypto market conditions intensified the situation even more.

After experiencing harsh liquidations, XRP decreased to the $0.36 mark. However, it rebounded by over 12% at press time, therefore, fighting its battle to survive.

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