Ripple Doesn’t Oppose Unsealing Legal Memos
Legal memos, which are going to be unsealed today, could mark a pivotal moment in the Ripple v. SEC case
Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen, one of the two individual defendants in the high-profile lawsuit filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against the blockchain company, do not oppose unsealing pivotal legal memos in their entirety, according to a recently submitted letter to Federal Judge Analisa Torres of the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
The defendants only request a limited redaction to one of the exhibits in order to protect the privacy of one of the company’s equity investors, whose name is not relevant to the case. The SEC did not voice an objection to the redaction in question.
The unsealed exhibit shows that law firm Perkins Coie told Ripple Labs that its founders could receive XRP tokens at their own risk. However, the firm also warned the company against handing the tokens to investors and employees since it could increase the chance of the SEC classifying the token as an unregistered security.
As reported by U.Today, legal memos from 2012, which the court recently ordered to unseal in spite of Ripple’s protestations, could be a make-or-break point for the case since it will reveal who has been blowing smoke in court. If it turns out that the defendants knowingly chose to disregard security laws, the tide will certainly turn in the SEC’s favor (and vice versa).
The exhibits are expected to be unsealed on Feb. 18, according to attorney Jeremy Hogan, who has been closely following the case since the very beginning.
What happens next? The Judge will do a quick order to the clerk to unseal the exhibits. Because it’s after 7pm court-time, this will probably happen tomorrow. I don’t think we’ll see anything tonight.
— Jeremy Hogan (@attorneyjeremy1) February 18, 2022
In the meantime, the SEC filed a separate motion, in which it asked Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn to reconsider and clarify its deliberate process privilege (DPP) ruling regarding the drafts of the infamous Ethereum speech of former high-ranking official William Hinman. The agency argues that piercing the DPP is “unwarranted” since they represent an “essential” link to its deliberative process.
