In another installment of its legal struggle against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), US blockchain firm Ripple has obtained a positive ruling from a U.S. District Court Judge in Manhattan who overruled the regulator’s attempts to withhold documents from the fintech.
The document, shared by Ripple’s lawyer James K. Filan, shows that Judge Analisa Torres overruled the agency’s objections and directed the SEC to comply with Ripple’s request. The regulator is now required to disclose drafts of a 2018 speech made by William Hinman, the former Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, in which he declared that bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) are not securities, and for this reason, they are not subject to the regulator’s oversight.
The SEC’s case against Ripple is based on its claim that the company’s token, Ripple (XRP), should be considered a security, and its sale to investors violated the U.S. securities regulations. In contrast with the SEC’s stance, the blockchain business maintains that XRP cannot be considered a security, as there is no “investment contract” that would grant rights to investors.
Among others, in his speech from June 15, 2018, Hinman said ethereum was “not a security because, putting aside its ‘fundraising’, it had become ‘sufficiently decentralized,’” as noted by crypto legal analysis site Crypto-Law.us.
Earlier this month, both entities asked for a swift judgment, raising hopes among XRP investors that Ripple’s legal trouble could end relatively soon, potentially boosting its native token’s price. This said, Ripple subsequently filed a motion seeking the dismissal of the suit before trial in a federal court.
The market has demonstrated a positive reaction to the latest announcement, with XRP’s price increasing to roughly $0.49 as of 08:30 a.m. UTC, an increase of 11.21% over a 24-hour period, according to data from CoinMarketCap.com.
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