Ripple and XRP Holders given “great sign” from Judge Torres

Judge Analisa Torres has granted in part and denied in part a request from Ripple and individual defendants to seal exhibits in their filing to crush the SEC’s motion to strike the Fair Notice defense.

In the ruling, the court ordered three documents to be unsealed: the Notice of Brad Garlinghouse’s Deposition in the SEC formal investigation, a Chris Larsen Email String, and a Brad Garlinghouse Email. The files can be read by clicking on the respective links.

The judge also denied Ripple’s request to seal Legal Memos provided to Chris Larsen and briefing associated with those memos.

As to Ripple’s Request to File Sur-Reply to the SEC’s Motion to Strike the Fair Notice Defense, the court granted the defendants’ wishes. The sur-reply will be filed on 9 February 2022.

The order demonstrates how the court sees the SEC v. Ripple lawsuit: a case of public interest that deserves public access. This signals that the judge may frustrate the SEC’s attempt to keep its documents away from Ripple and the public.

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Attorney Jeremy Hogan went to Twitter to share his view that the ruling is a sign that Analisa Torres, the judge presiding over the case, will soon start to move the lawsuit forward.

“There’s only one major takeaway from this Order on the Ripple v. SEC case: Judge TORRES is getting ready to take over. The next couple months will be very interesting with all the major rulings that are being teed up!”

John Deaton, the attorney for the XRP Holders in the SEC v. Ripple lawsuit, said rulings for Judge Torres are a great sign for his clients.

“What these rulings clearly show is that Judge Torres favors public disclosure. Ripple can’t seal certain documents (ie legal Memo ). Same applies to the SEC. Think ahead! We may ultimately get to see the 63 Hinman emails!”

The 63 Hinman emails mentioned in Deaton’s tweet regard the deliberative privilege issue with the SEC. Judge Sarah Netburn has recently ordered the production of Hinman’s drafts and notes regarding his 2018 speech, which John Deaton called Ripple’s “biggest victory”.

“The biggest victory for Ripple and XRPHolders, from Judge Netburn’s recent decision, isn’t necessarily the email with the Draft version of the Hinman speech. The most significant victory could prove to be the notes from meetings with 3rd parties not associated w/ Ripple.”

Deaton further explained those third parties are very likely to be Ethereum’s Joseph Lybin and executive(s) from ConsenSys, who met with Hinman and others, as well as VC Working Group (a member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance).

“These notes are no doubt from the above meetings. Judge Netburn ruled the SEC can still invoke attorney client privilege regarding the personal notes Memo by Valerie Szczepanik and others, but if the notes contain statements made by the people at the meetings – its NOT privileged.”

In order to ascertain what happened in those meeting, whether XRP, Ether, and BTC were mentioned and/or distinguished, John Deaton has decided XRP Holders will be filing a new FOIA request based on Judge Netburn’s finding the meeting its not covered by DPP.

In a somewhat surprising attempt to prevent the documents from being handed over to the SEC, the agency was able to be granted an extension to argue for the judge to reconsider her decision.

The continued delays in the SEC v. Ripple lawsuit could push the timeline to 2023 and attorney Jeremy Hogan shared a video where he questions if the SEC’s delay tactics are a mere pressure play or if they are hiding “something really bad” that would end the lawsuit right away.

Now that Judge Analisa Torres is back in action, major rulings are expected to be made at a faster pace. If Hogan’s suspicions prove to be true, if the court chooses to maintain its decision on the DPP matter, the lawsuit would end faster than expected and the XRP holdings would be unfrozen.