Ripple may have just scored a win against the SEC.
The crypto company has been tied up in an SEC lawsuit for years after the Commission accused Ripple of illegally trading XRP token without registering it as a security.
Part of the legal battle centers on a controversial 2018 speech and the documents surrounding it.
In the speech, Bill Hinman, former director of the SEC, explained why he didn’t care Bitcoin or Ethereum as securities.
“Rejecting the fundraising associated with the creation of Ether, based on my understanding of the current state of Ether, the Ethereum network and its decentralized structure, current offers and sales of Ether are not securities transactions,” said Hinman.
Back in 2021, Ripple used this speech as an indication that the SEC does not view Bitcoin or Ethereum as a security, arguing that XRP should not be considered a security either. The company filed immediately Freedom of Information Act Request which will reveal documents that explain how Hinman came to this conclusion.
The SEC responded by claiming that, at times, Hinman’s speech represented his personal views rather than the Commission’s policy.
As a result, the governing body wants to prevent the documents involved in this speech from public scrutiny while also arguing that the documents are protected by a law that provides privacy for internal deliberations.
Because of this, they filed a “motion to seal,” which is a formal request to prevent the evidence from being made available to the general public.
But Judge Analisa Torres denied the SEC’s motion to seal these documents on Tuesday saying, “they are judicial documents subject to a strong presumption of public access.”
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse responded to the news via Twitter claiming the decision was “Another win for transparency!” It goes without saying that we should expect to see the “unredacted” Hinman emails soon.
This is not the first time the SEC has denied a motion to seal these documents.
Last year, a judge denied the SEC’s attempt to protect the same documents after a court order for the SEC to produce the documents in question.