SEC Wants To Keep Hinman Speech Documents Concealed In Ripple Case

The SEC’s request to seal documents in the Ripple Labs case has now sparked criticism from the entire crypto community. Based on the latest reports, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has requested to hide the infamous Hinman Speech documents, alleging that they are not relevant to the court’s summary judgment decision.

Notably, the Motion to Seal Summary Judgment Document was filed by the SEC on December 22, requesting the sealing of different information and documents, mainly the Hinman Speech documents.

These Hinman Speech documents refer to the speech that was given by former SEC Corporation Finance Division Director William Hinman during the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in June 2018, where he allegedly said that Ether (ETH), the native token of the Ethereum blockchain, is not a security.

Ripple is convinced that it is a critical piece of evidence to enable them to win the case against the US watchdog. During its latest motion, the SEC stated that its mission outweighs the ‘public’s right’ to access documents that do not have any relevance to the court’s summary judgment decision.

It also requested that all references to the Hinman Speech Documents be “redacted” from the papers of the defendants.

The SEC’s request has now sparked lots of criticism from the crypto community, with one user suggesting that the SEC chairman Gary Gensler has a hidden agenda:

Anyone else wonder what Gary Gensler and the SEC are hiding? 🧐

— XRPcryptowolf (@XRPcryptowolf) December 22, 2022

That document also requested the sealing of every piece of information related to the SEC’s expert witnesses and XRP investors that already submitted declarations, and internal SEC documents reflecting debate and deliberation by SEC officials.

No surprise the SEC wants to keep the Hinman emails/docs redacted. At this point, given J. Torres' rulings to date (including her position that the emails are likely only relevant for impeachment), I predict she probably rules to keep them redacted. Sad, but not unreasonable.

— Fred Rispoli (@freddyriz) December 22, 2022

It comes barely weeks after Ripple Labs filed its final submission against SEC on December 2, which means that the 2-year legal battle might end soon.

On October 21, Ripple confirmed that it had access to the Hinman Speech Documents after 18 months and six court orders, although these documents remained confidential at the SEC’s insistence.

The SEC was previously denied by the courts to maintain Hinman documents as a secret, with the United States judge calling out the SEC’s hypocrisy for doing that.