The SEC has put in considerable effort to conceal the documents related to its former top official, William Hinman, in the ongoing case against Ripple.
However, US district court judge Analisa Torres has rejected the motion to keep the documents under wraps and has since ordered the Securities and Exchange Commission to turn them in.
SEC v/s Ripple
In greater detail, the documents are draft emails of William Hinman’s infamous Ethereum speech. The SEC’s attempts to conceal the documents by asserting Deliberative Process Privilege (DPP) have since failed after the court order.
According to Sarah Hepburn, a magistrate judge, William Hinman’s internal speech documents do not qualify as agency records since they only express his personal views. As a result, they cannot be classified under the “essential links” category in the agency’s deliberations, as the SEC has claimed.
Judge Torres has also stated this as a reason for refusing the SEC’s attempt to reject the ruling since these documents only reflect Hinman’s personal opinions. Hence they cannot be protected by Deliberative Process Privileges.
It is also worth noting that before this, the SEC had tried unsuccessfully to assert attorney-client privileges to protect Hinman’s emails.
The court also rejected this motion after determining that the internal speech documents contain information intended to interpret and apply legal principles. As a result, the court also rejected the SEC’s assertions of attorney-client privileges.
It is unlikely that the SEC backs down this easily, as they will likely have many more legislative tricks up their sleeves.
For example, the SEC can easily challenge this ruling by judge Analisa Torres in the court of appeals. This move, if taken, is likely to fail but can go a long way to buy the SEC sometime before their next big move.
What This Means to XRP Price Action
The price of XRP seems sensitive to news in favor of Ripple Labs in the ongoing court case against the SEC.
XRP has moved up 11.2% at the time of writing. This further brings a breakout from the $0.55 mark into perspective.
On the 4-hour chart, the price of XRP appears to have bounced off the new support at the $0.486 level and is trending upwards to retest and possibly break out of the $0.55 resistance.
The MACD shows more room for bullishness as more investors flock in after the news of Ripple Labs’ small victory in the ongoing battle against the SEC.
Disclaimer: The author’s comments and recommendations are solely for educational and informative purposes. They do not represent any financial or investment advice. Always DYOR  (do your own research
