The controversial Hinman Speech materials have been asked to be sealed by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), who claims they have no bearing on the court’s summary judgment ruling.
On December 22, the SEC submitted a motion to seal the summary judgment document, asking to have several pieces of information and documents, most notably the Hinman Speech materials, sealed.
The documents referred to as the “Hinman Speech” concern a speech made by William Hinman, a former director of the SEC Corporation’s finance division, at the Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit in June 2018 in which he allegedly denied that Ether (ETH), the cryptocurrency used by the Ethereum blockchain, is a security.
In their lawsuit against the American regulator, Ripple views it as a crucial piece of evidence.
According to the SEC’s most recent motion, the “public’s right” to see materials that “have no significance” to the Court’s summary judgment determination trumps the SEC’s mission.
Additionally, it asked that any mentions of the Hinman Speech Documents be “redacted” from the defendants’ papers.
The SEC’s request has drawn ire from the cryptocurrency community, with one user alleging that Gary Gensler, the head of the SEC, has a secret agenda.
After 18 months and six court orders, Ripple finally acknowledged on October 21 that it had access to the Hinman Speech Documents, however the SEC insisted that the records stay secret.
A U.S. judge earlier rejected the SEC’s request to keep the Hinman records secret and criticized the SEC for acting hypocritically in doing so.
