Ripple Wins Right to Access SEC’s 2018 Ethereum Emails as XRP Case Rumbles on

cryptonews.com:

Ripple’s protracted legal battle with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken yet another turn – with the firm winning the right to access a much-contested document containing quotes by an SEC official on the matter of whether or not ethereum (ETH) is a security.

The document contains the text of a 2018 speech that was delivered by a former leading SEC official named William Hinman. The latter, in the speech, explained that ETH could not be classed as a security due to the fact that it was appropriately decentralized.

The SEC has accused Ripple officials of selling the XRP token as an unregistered security, a claim the executives deny. Any sort of admission by the SEC that ETH is not a security, Ripple’s legal team claims, would help their case.

In a ruling, the presiding Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, of the Southern District of New York’s District Court, stated that SEC may no longer claim that document and the emails associated with it are “privileged documents” – meaning the Ripple team will be able to use it as evidence in the case.

Hinman, in the emails, had shared his thoughts on the contents of the speech, and the SEC had claimed that the exchange was “merely peripheral to actual policy formation,” and thus “privileged.” But Netburn ruled that “emails concerning the speech or draft versions are neither pre-decisional nor deliberative agency documents entitled to protection.”

She also noted:

“The personal views of agency employees are not protected by the privilege unless they bear on the formulation or exercise of policy-oriented judgment.”

However, Netburn did uphold the SEC’s request to withhold access to a range of other documents the Ripple team had requested, and appeared to suggest that some of