U.S. District Judge Sara Netburn granted the SEC’s motion to compel production of Ripple employees’ Slack messages. According to attorney James K. Filan.
#XRPCommunity #SECGov v. #Ripple #XRP 1/3 The Court grants the SEC’s Motion to Compel Production of Ripple’s Slack communications in a Text Only Order. The Order states: «ORDER granting 283 Letter Motion. The Slack messages sought are relevant to the parties’ claims and defenses
— James K. Filan 🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@FilanLaw) September 1, 2021
In August the regulator filed a motion demanding disclosure of ‘more than a million messages, including terabytes of data’. The fintech company acknowledged that it had collected only part of the information ‘due to an array-processing error’.
The SEC called Ripple’s actions ‘harmful’, noting that the messages demonstrate the relevance of the remaining documents. In the Commission’s view, they could be used to prove XRP price manipulation and the importance of its sales to the defendant’s business.
Ripple argued that complying with the requests would cost up to $1 million. However, the court deemed the information important and unique evidence. In Netburn’s view, any burden on Ripple is outweighed by its prior agreement to produce the relevant Slack messages.
2/3 and proportional to the needs of the case. Any burden to Ripple is outweighed by its previous agreement to produce the relevant Slack messages, the relative resources of the parties, and the amount in controversy.
— James K. Filan 🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@FilanLaw) September 1, 2021
Earlier the court backed Ripple on the SEC’s document disclosure issue. The regulator was ordered to produce them with minimal edits.
At the end of August the fintech company sought information from the SEC about its employees’ dealings with Bitcoin, Ethereum, and XRP, and also requested documents from the cryptocurrency exchange Binance.
In December 2020, the SEC accused Ripple and its executives of unregistered sale of securities under the guise of XRP tokens worth $1.3 billion. Later the regulator amended the complaint, focusing on the actions of Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen.
In July the company secured a subpoena for former SEC Corporate Finance Division director William Hinman. During the hearing he stated that he had warned Ripple about the risk of XRP being deemed a security.
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