According to William Hinman, a former director of the SEC Corporation Finance Division, internal documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have been given to Ripple Labs Inc., the company’s general counsel said on Friday.
This is in response to the U.S. district court decision on September 29 ordering the SEC to provide Ripple Labs with the documents. Internal SEC communications and Hinman’s speech drafts from the June 2018 Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit are included in the file.
“Over 18 months and 6 court orders later, we finally have the Hinman docs (internal SEC emails and drafts of his infamous 2018 speech). While they remain confidential for now (at the SEC’s insistence), I can say that it was well worth the fight to get them,” wrote Alderoty on Twitter.
The division director’s assertion that Ether is not a security is included in Hinman’s speech.
This development may mark a turning point in Ripple’s legal conflict with the American securities regulator. In its 2020 complaint, the SEC charged Ripple Labs with using its XRP token as an unregistered securities to raise money.
The verdict in the lawsuit might establish a standard for how cryptocurrencies are categorized for purposes of U.S. financial laws.
According to CoinMarketCap, XRP was trading around US$0.45 on Friday morning in Asia, down from US$1.09 a year prior.
