The long legal battle between Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple is one step closer to the end thanks to the Commission’s latest filing. The court is expected to pronounce its judgment soon as both parties have already submitted all necessary documents.
What is the latest SEC filing about?
The committee submitted a letter in opposition to Ripple’s request to seal certain documents related to the appeals phase. According to earlier reportThe SEC noted that it does not oppose Ripple’s demands in their entirety. With respect to the objecting redactions, the Commission argued that the crypto company had failed to “overcome the strong assumption that court filings should be public.”
The regulator mentioned that the materials objected to by the redaction are “fundamental to the justification.” The SEC requested remedies” The SEC further noted that Ripple invited the public to form an opinion on the merits of the Commission’s positions. Therefore, a crypto company cannot “simultaneously conceal” from the public the evidence on which the SEC’s position is based.
Moreover, the SEC said that Ripple’s argument that failure to redact these documents could harm its business does not eliminate the burden of proof on the crypto company to show “exceptional circumstances” that justify sealing or redacting. Ripple also cited previous cases in this matter where the court granted certain sealing and correction requests.
However, the Commission claims that it does not “justify” Ripple demands trying to distinguish these earlier events from the present case. First, they noted that the court’s prior redaction decisions were made “in the context of specific submissions, not the rest of the case.” Unlike then, the financial information and terms of the offering that the company seeks to seal “are now at the center of remedies decisions,” the SEC noted.
Second, the SEC argued that the documents Ripple seeks to seal are documents that it would be legally obligated to disclose in the first place because a court he already ruled that the institutional sale of the company was in the nature of investment contracts. Finally, the Commission argued that these documents were now “obsolete” and there was no need to hide them.
When can we expect the final judgment in the Ripple case?
Judge Analisa Torres is expected to deliver its final judgment soon as both parties have submitted all their submissions in accordance with Art planning order. However, before that, the judge will have to rule on the case Ripple’s sealing move and decide whether a crypto company’s financial information should be made public.
Following the ruling, Ripple will have fourteen days to submit a public or redacted (depending on the court’s ruling) version of the documents in question. After completing these steps, the court will be able to proceed to issuing the final judgment. The SEC has proposed that Judge Torres fined Ripple nearly $2 billion.
Meanwhile, Ripple did it opposed proposed remedies and asked the court to limit the proposed fine to just $10 million.
Featured image created with Dall.E, chart from Tradingview.com