Judge Denies SEC Access to Ripple’s Legal Opinion Letters

District Judge Sara Netburn denied the SEC’s motion to access Ripple’s records of legal consultations concerning the legal status of the XRP token.

The agency contends that Ripple’s lawyers may have informed Ripple that XRP bore characteristics of a security even before the token sale began. On May 7 the regulator направил в суд прошение for disclosure of the relevant information.

«Ripple утверждает, что запрошенные SEC документы защищены адвокатской тайной, от которой никто не отказывался», — заявила Нетберн.

The regulator did not tell the company that XRP tokens might be considered securities, the defense noted. On May 27 the agency передало суду меморандум challenging the assertion that advance notice was required.

The SEC argued that in more than 70 similar cases against other crypto firms, the regulator’s actions were sufficient for Ripple to reach the correct conclusion about the status of the asset.

Lawyer Jeremy Hogan called the judge’s ruling “extremely important”. The attorney said it would allow Ripple to continue pursuing its defense.

Judge DENIES the SEC’s motion to compel production of Ripple’s lawyer opinion letters. Very important because the Judge states Ripple’s subjective beliefs re XRP are NOT relevant to the Fair Notice defense, blocking the road the SEC wanted to use to fight the Defense. https://t.co/MHsx569BmO

— Jeremy Hogan (@attorneyjeremy1) May 30, 2021

Netburn stressed that the ruling applies to this specific issue.

The court did not take any position on whether Ripple’s asserted defense is well-founded or merits consideration,

XRP rose by almost 14%. At the time of writing the token trades at about $0.99.

As previously reported, 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 revised the suit, focusing on the actions of Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen.

In April 2021, Netburn granted Ripple’s motion for access to SEC documents revealing the regulator’s ‘interpretation and views’ regarding Bitcoin and Ethereum.

In May the judge allowed the regulator to seek information about Ripple in the framework of a memorandum of understanding with foreign regulators.

Decision Denying Access to Legal Memos by ForkLog on Scribd