Victory for Ripple: Court rejects secrecy of Hinman documents

Ripple has won a small victory in its legal dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The court has decided to stop keeping the Hinman documents secret.

US District Judge Analisa Torres judged on May 16 that Hinman's documents should not be sealed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). As a result, the SEC's request to seal the documents was not approved.

The documents contain records of internal SEC deliberations following a speech by former director William Hinman. The emails, text messages and expert reports therein are considered key pieces of evidence in the crypto token XRP trial. In a June 2018 speech, the former director of the SEC's Division of Finance stated that Ether, the Ethereum blockchain's native token, was not a security.

SEC labels XRP as a security

The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020, accusing the protocol of illegally selling its own XRP token for years as an unregistered security and that it remains a security today. The Ripple case is from particular importance to the crypto sector, because it can be used as an example in the classification of other tokens.