SEC Continues to Squabble over Hinman Speech in Ripple Lawsuit

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is committed to fight Ripple Labs as the defendant in the lawsuit that the U.S regulator started in 2021 holds critical evidence that might harm the SEC’s changes of winning.

The SEC continues to hold on to its objection to include the draft of the infamous speech made by its former Director of Corporate Finance, William Hinman, in court.

In the speech, dating back to 2018, Hinman stated that Ethereum is not considered a security.

The SEC has filed a new motion to remove the speech from proceedings and says that the documents are only for internal consumption, not relevant to the lawsuit.

“The speech drafts have no relevance to the claims or defenses in this case. They are internal non-public documents that Defendants (and other market participants) have never seen.”

The payments firm was taken to court by the U.S. regulator over allegedly selling its native token XRP as an unregistered security. The Hinman speech is considered an essential element of the defense strategy.

Furthermore, acknowledging the potential relevance of the documents, the SEC claims that they are protected and cannot become a part of the case.

“Even if the speech drafts were relevant, they are protected by the DPP (Deliberative Process Privilege) because they are pre-decisional and deliberative.”

The SEC details that it was the opinion of Hinman himself, and not that of the SEC. It also predated any decision related to Ripple and XRP that the Commission made.