The XRP community’s favorite attorney, Jeremy Hogan, has taken to Twitter again to speak out about the lawsuit between Ripple and the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). This time, Hogan cites his fellow attorney John Deaton, who represents more than 75,000 XRP investors in a case against the SEC that parallels Ripple Labs’ lawsuit.
Why the SEC cannot meet its burden on (at least) one element of the Howey test.
In order to win at Summary Judgment, the SEC has to do two things:
1. Prove every element by the greater weight of the evidence AND
2. Prove that there is no genuine dispute of a material fact. 1/ https://t.co/CzCFzCSahE— Jeremy Hogan (@attorneyjeremy1) Nov 6, 2022
Positive for XRP
According to Hogan, it is unlikely that the SEC will be able to sufficiently substantiate any part of the crucial Howey Test in its favor. The Howey Test is the traditional way in the United States to determine whether an asset qualifies as a security under the US Securities Act.
That’s basically what the whole thing between Ripple and the SEC is all about. According to Hogan, the case of his colleague John Deathon plays an important role in this development. By allowing the voices of these thousands of investors to be heard, the chance that the courts will rule against them seems slim.
The argument that XRP investors decided to buy the token because of Ripple’s promises of a higher future price does not seem to prove probable to the SEC, according to Hogan. That should ultimately make it very difficult for the SEC to settle this case in its favor, which is good news for Ripple and XRP.
Expert abandons SEC
The SEC expert also admits that he would probably have come to a different conclusion had he known earlier that “XRP investors were not buying the token for investment purposes.” Deaton says it is mainly a failure of the SEC expert not to question any XRP token holder in advance about his or her motives for buying the token.
Ripple now has more than 3,000 confirmations from Deaton and the army of XRP token holders declaring that they did not buy XRP because of statements made by Ripple. Hogan concludes based on that information that the SEC has failed to reach the “evidence threshold.”
However, we have to keep in mind that someone like Deaton himself is a big XRP fan and holder and so is not exactly objective about the lawsuit.