As the cryptocurrency community is eagerly waiting for the conclusion of the legal battle between the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple, the blockchain company has scored a major win as the judge denied the regulator’s motion to seal controversial documents.
Indeed, District Judge Analisa Torres has denied the SEC’s motion to seal the Hinman documents, which refer to a speech that former SEC Division Director William Hinman delivered at a summit in 2018, where he said Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) were not securities, defense attorney James K. Filan shared on May 16.
At the same time, Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse retweeted the news, expressing his delight and stating that this was “another win for transparency” as the “unredacted Hinman emails” are “to be publicly available soon” as the legal team works out the way to make it happen.
As a reminder, in September 2022, Judge Torres overruled the SEC’s objection to releasing the documents, observing that Judge Sarah Netburn, who had earlier declared that the deliberative process privilege did not protect the email and drafts of the speech, had made no error in her decision, Finbold reported.
In her most recent decision, Judge Torres reiterated this stance, arguing that “the deliberative process or attorney-client privileges” do not protect the Hinman speech documents as “they do not relate to an agency position, decision, or policy.”
XRP price reaction
Meanwhile, XRP, the token that the SEC argues is a security, reacted to Judge Torres’s ruling with a massive increase in price, at press time changing hands at $0.45, which demonstrates a gain of 5.12% on the day and 4.85% across the previous week, as it moves to reverse the 13.30% losses of the past month.
Judging by the crypto asset’s reaction to the latest decision, at a time when many other assets in the crypto market are suffering losses, XRP investors could be looking at a lucrative future should Ripple’s arguments prevail and ultimately secure the blockchain company’s win in the lawsuit.
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