SEC Pushing for Redaction of Hinman Documents in Ripple Lawsuit

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States has sought that the infamous Hinman Speech papers be sealed, arguing that they are irrelevant to the court’s summary judgment ruling.

On December 22, the SEC filed a Motion to Seal Summary Judgment Document, demanding the sealing of certain material and documents, most notably the Hinman Speech records. The material is of critical importance to Ripple’s defense against the US regulator.

The Hinman Lecture materials pertain to a speech given by former SEC Corporation Finance Division Director William Hinman in June 2018 at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, in which he allegedly said that Ether ETH, the native cryptocurrency of the Ethereum network, is not a security.

Previously on September 29, the judge overseeing the case ruled that the Hinman documents are relevant to the case, something the US regulator does not accept until now.

The SEC stated in its most recent request that its purpose overrides the public’s interest to view materials that are not relevant to the Court’s summary judgment determination. It further asked that any references to the Hinman Speech Documents be removed from the defendants’ documents.

A month ago, it looked as if the parties were ready to settle the case, a beneficial development for the SEC in order to avoid the Hinman documents to become public.