In an intriguing twist of the ongoing legal saga between the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Ripple Labs, Judge Analisa Torres has given the green light for the inclusion of investment banker declarant, Andrew A. Kunsak. As outlined in the court disclosures, US Southern District Court Judge Torres’s authorization of Kunsak, hailing from Sidley Austin LLP, aims at impeding the exposure of court-sealed sensitive details.
Previously, Ripple Labs had resisted an analogous circumstance involving an investment banker declarant backing the SEC. This fresh inclusion has fanned not-so-insignificant anxieties for the defendants. A possible consequence of this is that it might offer a solution to issues related to orders that rebuffed the SEC’s plea to conceal the Hinman speech documents and Ripple’s motion to protect confidential data concerning its executives’ finances.
Earlier, on May 16, the US securities regulator lost their fight to conceal internal conversation records from a speech by former director William Hinman. Interestingly, Hinman had, in this particular speech delivered in June 2018, emphasised that Ethereum’s native token, Ether (ETH), cannot be constituted as a security. A stance that, evidently, contradicts SEC’s conjecture in its case against Ripple Labs. Despite these contradictions, Judge Torres refused SEC’s assertion of preserving these documents’ secrecy essential.
Reiterating her commitment to transparency and openness within the SEC, she commanded that the Hinman Speech documents be disclosed. However, the court did side with the SEC on two other points: the elimination of names and specific details of SEC experts and XRP investor declarants, and the protection of the defendants’ personal and financial data.
The unveiling of these documents offered some wins for Ripple Labs including several emails related to Hinman’s 2018 speech. None were more groundbreaking than the emails highlighting SEC officials discussing Hinman’s speech, distinctly expressing that Ether (ETH) was not a security.
Despite all these developments, the legal skirmish between the SEC and Ripple Labs is far from over. The SEC has filed a motion for an interlocutory appeal concerning Judge Torres’s verdict that XRP sales do not meet the criteria for securities under the Howey Test. The SEC is also urging
Source: Cryptonews
