On May 16, United States District Judge Analisa Torres issued a decision that is seen as a victory for Ripple.
The US SEC had requested that the internal deliberations be sealed after a speech by the former director, William Hinman, but this request was rejected by Torres. This is considered a triumph for the Ripple and crypto community.
Judge Torres’ verdict
In his June 2018 speech, the then director of the financial division of the Securities and Exchange Commission claimed that Ether, the token of the Ethereum blockchain, is not considered a security.
The SEC filed a motion on Dec. 22 seeking to keep secret the internal emails, text messages and expert reports that followed Hinman’s speech. She argued that her mission was more important than the “public right” to have access to documents that were “irrelevant” to the court’s lawsuit, among other arguments.
However, according to Judge Analisa Torres, the documents are considered “court records”, which have a strong presumption that they should be available to the public. Below you can see the decision of the judge:
She added that the documents related to Hinman’s speech “have reasonable potential to influence the court’s decision on a motion.”
Brad Garlinghouse is happy with the judge’s ruling.
XRP price reacts positively
While the court has ruled that the documents related to Hinman’s speech will be made public, it also approved two additional requests from the SEC. These asked for the names and identifying information of SEC experts and XRP investors, as well as personal and financial records of the defendants, to be redacted.
Nevertheless, the judge’s ruling was received positively by XRP investors. For Ripple, the Hinman documents are key evidence in their ongoing legal battle with the SEC, which alleges that the sale of Ripple’s XRP violated U.S. securities laws.
The news resulted in a significant price increase of the XRP token. Its value rose 5.2 percent in the past 24 hours. Currently it is trading at USD 0.446.