Ripple: SEC Attempts to Conceal the Hinman Speech Documents

• The SEC submitted a motion to seal the summary judgment document on December 22.
• SEC’s recent request contends that its mission outweighs the “public’s right” to access documents that have “no relevance.” 

The U.S Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is attempting to keep the notorious “Hinman Speech” documents, connected with the Ripple case. According to a recent report, the SEC has requested that the Hinman documents be sealed, alleging that they do not have relevance to the court’s summary judgment ruling.

The SEC moved to seal multiple pieces of evidence and documents, most notably the Hinman Speech materials, in a motion to seal summary judgment filing, which was submitted on December 22, as per the report. 

SEC’s Efforts to Withhold Hinman Documents

The Hinman document is a speech that corresponded to William Hinman, a former director of the SEC Corporation’s finance division. In the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, which was held in June 2018, he purportedly denied that Ether (ETH), the native token of the Ethereum network, is security.

The SEC’s most recent request contends that the purpose of the agency is superseded by the public’s right to view documents that are unrelated to the Court’s summary judgment ruling. It further requested that all references to the Hinman Speech Documents be “redacted” from the documents presented by the defendants.

The SEC insisted that the documents stay confidential, however, after 18 months and six court orders, Ripple ultimately revealed on October 21 that it had access to the Hinman Speech Documents.

Moreover, the SEC had previously asked to keep the Hinman records private. But, the US judge denied that request and criticized the SEC for acting hypocritically in doing so.