As the legal battle between Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) continues to grab attention, with some rumors indicating it could soon be finalized, the presiding judge on the case has issued a ruling on both parties’ motions to preclude expert witnesses’ testimony, favoring neither.
Specifically, Judge Analisa Torres has issued an initial 57-page ruling in which both the blockchain company and the securities regulator were seeking to exclude expert testimony from summary judgment, as shared by the U.S. defense attorney James K. Filan on March 7.
Win for Ripple?
From the looks of it, neither side gets everything it asked for in this ruling as the Judge granted in part and denied in part both Ripple’s and the SEC’s motions, also referred to as ‘Daubert’ motions, not giving an upper hand to either the regulator or the XRP community.
This was noted by Scott Chamberlain, a former attorney and co-founder of the permissionless Layer 2 platform Evernode XRPL, who also praised the presiding Judge’s objectivity in the case, stating that “what leaps out is how sharp, rigorous, and utterly impartial Judge Torres is.”
That said, the ruling did exclude the testimony of the expert witness Patrick Doody, who was hired by the SEC to analyze the expectations of XRP buyers, which could mean a win for Ripple considering he was the watchdog’s only expert witness on the subject, according to XRP community attorney Jeremy Hogan.
Interestingly, the SEC had also unsuccessfully asked the Judge to revoke the amicus status of John E. Deaton over his “motion asking permission to file an amicus brief challenging a so-called XRP holder expert,” as observed by Fox Business journalist Eleanor Terrett and retweeted by the pro-XRP lawyer.
Meanwhile, the XRP community seems to perceive the ruling as a win for Ripple as well, as the price of the cryptocurrency at press time stood at $0.37, recording a 1.75% increase over the last day, according to the data retrieved by Finbold on March 7.
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