Ripple vs SEC: Brad Garlinghouse’s Counsel File Motion to Obtain Binance Documents

A recent development in the XRP lawsuit saw Defendant Bradley Garlinghouse submit a Letter of Request to the court, appealing to obtain Binance Holdings Limited documents from the Cayman Island authorities that are “relevant to the case and unobtainable through other means”.

Hague Convention

The plea is filed under the Hague Convention of 18 March 1970 on taking of evidence abroad in civil or commercial matters. The plaintiff is using the Hague Convention to gather foreign documents that “possesses unique documents and information” regarding the XRP transactions on foreign digital asset trading platforms that the SEC used to file the lawsuit against Garlinghouse.

SEC’s Section 5 of Securities act may be void

Ripple lawyers have filed for the motion to obtain against SEC’s claims under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933. Sec alleged that Garlinghouse violated the referred act by selling 357 million units of XRP on “worldwide” digital asset trading platforms like Binance, to investors “all over the world”. However, Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933 applies only to domestic sales and offers of securities, contradictory to SEC’s claims of global violation.

“As the SEC knows, Mr. Garlinghouse’s sales of XRP were overwhelmingly made on digital asset trading platforms outside of the United States […] the discovery that Mr. Garlinghouse seeks will be relevant to demonstrating that the offers and sales that the SEC challenges did not occur in this country and are not subject to the law that the SEC has invoked in this case.”, the letter stated.

Motion to Dismiss

Furthermore, the defendants have followed up their former request of motion to dismiss on grounds of SEC’s incapability of proving XRP’s domestic offers and sales made in the United States. With overwhelming foreign offers and sales alleged by the SEC itself, Ripple only needs approval for the motion to strengthen its plea to dismissal.

The XRP lawsuit has become one of the biggest cases in the history of crypto. Especially, after the SEC rebuked its own, commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman’s comments on securities. SEC appears to be in a pickle with Ripple’s recent request, making SEC grounds for the lawsuit weaker and invalid.