YEREVAN (CoinChapter.com) – The Ripple vs SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) case has dragged on since Dec 2020, while thousands of XRP holders hope for the final ruling to arrive in 2023. James K. Filan, an attorney, consistently providing followers with details on the case, asserted that Magistrate Judge Torres is likely to “work backward.”
I.e., the judge is likely to deliver a ruling on the summary judgment before the ruling on the sealing of expert materials and the Hinman documents.
What Judge Torres relies on in making her decision on the summary judgment motions will likely dictate what she will unseal. If the Judge relies on a document in her decision, that document is considered a “judicial document,” and then it would be disclosed.
says Filan in a recent tweet. Filan also noted that there are currently three major outstanding issues: summary judgment motions, expert challenges, and sealing issues regarding the Hinman documents and other materials relied on by the SEC and Ripple. But before discussing the current proceedings, a small flashback into the case is warranted.
XRP vs SEC: A Small Flashback
As mentioned, the SEC filed the said lawsuit in Dec 2020, accusing Ripple of selling $1.3 billion worth of its native token XRP as unregistered securities. Since then, both parties have worked out several angles of prosecution and defense.
The SEC has earlier declared ALL of XRP transactions since the ICO (initial coin offering) in violation of the US investment law. Ripple fired back, accusing the agency of bias towards XRP. The company claimed that as SEC signed both Bitcoin and Ethereum off as cryptocurrencies as early as 2018, there is no evidence to suggest XRP should get the short end of the stick.
Summary Judgment Ruling
In detail, the motion of summary judgment means that the SEC requested the court to reach a verdict based on the available pieces of evidence, drawing the lawsuit to a close. Notably, both sides have previously filed the said motion, claiming that the evidence they have already presented would be enough for a ruling.
Judge Torres has not yet reached a conclusion on any of the summary judgment motions. However, Ripple’s defense team was confident that the agency had no leg to stand on. They latched on to a quote by the SEC lawyers that claimed: “an agency may not bootstrap itself into an area in which it has no jurisdiction.”
In its Motion for Summary Judgment, the SEC is trying to do just that. After nearly two years of pleadings, discovery, and motion practice, the SEC still has no viable legal theory to support its central claim that the Defendants had to register XRP as a security under the Securities Act of 1933.
read the Defendant’s preliminary statement.Sealing of Expert Materials
During the proceedings, both SEC and Ripple provided expert opinions on the case, but the SEC motioned to keep them sealed. As CoinChapter reported previously, “Judge Torres has granted in part and denied in part the Parties’ requests to seal documents.” The said documents are in connection with the “amici Motion to Participate in the Daubert proceedings.”
In detail, the Douberg Proceedings permit the parties to examine the challenged expert in open court to develop his or her testimony. In plain English, this means that the mentioned expert opinions will be open to the public, which brings us to the Hinman Speech.
Hinman Documents
Ripple’s defense cited what is now referred to as the “Hinman Speech” to prove their point. William Hinman is the former Director of the Corporation Finance Division at the SEC. In his June 2018 speech, Mr. Hinman voiced his position on defining digital assets.
Putting aside the fundraising that accompanied the creation of Ether, based on my understanding of the present state of Ether, the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure, current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions.said the former official.
said Hinman Notably, there are several documents related to Hinman himself, his deposition, and expert consults that were provided to him at the time.
James K. Filan’s prediction
Fast forward to Filan’s prediction, the expert noted that Judge Torres “will not reference” the Hinman documents in the upcoming rulings. He is sure that “the SEC will redact those references as they have done in the past.”
I also don’t think that Judge Torres will rule on sealing issues soon after January 9 because it’s probably isn’t how Judge Torres is going to approach the remainder of this case.
added the expert. Click here to keep up with the ever-changing crypto market and never miss the scoop!
