The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) retaliated in its lawsuit against Ripple Labs with a reply brief supporting its objections to orders requesting the disclosure of a 2018 speech made by former SEC director William Hinman. The SEC’s brief, submitted Tuesday, states that the speech drafts “are not relevant to any claim or defense in this matter.” Even if they were, the SEC argues that the “deliberative process privilege still protects them.” The SEC claimed that the speech documents are “predecisional” since they represent the staff members’ individual opinions rather than agency policy. XRP Token According to data from CoinMarketCap, XRP, the native token of the XRP Ledger developed by Ripple Labs, traded up 4.9% over the last 24 hours at US$0.3896 at 12:30 p.m. in Hong Kong. Following the filing of objections to Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn’s earlier orders requiring the SEC to release internal Hinman speech draughts, the agency issued its most recent brief on July 27. Judge Netburn rejected the SEC’s attorney-client privilege claims on July 12. SEC Sued Ripple in December 2020 The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, claiming that the company’s issuance of XRP constituted unregistered security offering worth more than US$1.38 billion. Additionally, listed as co-defendants by the SEC for allegedly aiding and abetting Ripple’s crimes were the CEO Brad Garlinghouse and executive chairman Chris Larsen. The SEC and ...
