XRP Lawsuit: SEC asserts the court shouldn’t override and punish DPP

The recent development in the ongoing XRP Lawsuit saw the SEC file an opposition against Individual Defendants’ Motion challenging the SEC’s improper assertion of the Deliberative Process and other privileges (DPP). The SEC has argued its stance against the discovery of internal and inter-agency documents protected by DPP.

The plaintiff asserts that DPP falls under critical governmental privilege. It is “Designed to promote the quality of agency decisions by preserving and encouraging candid discussion between officials.”

The SEC expects the court to not override and punish honest government deliberations. Especially, in the XRP lawsuit, the internal pre-decisional, deliberative data was sought by defendants, which they never saw or knew about. The SEC marks Ripple’s data discovery plea as Irrelevant to any claims or defense specific to the lawsuit.

SEC accuses Ripple of striking off most probative evidence

The SEC argues that they have already produced eminent documentation for the defendants. However, the defense has stroked the most probative evidence, i.e., former SEC Division of Corporation Finance Director, William Hinman’s deposition testimony that he met with Ripple representatives.

In this meeting, Hinman claims he told the defendants, that according to him, Ripple’s sales of XRP are sales of securities. He further advised Ripple to stop the unregistered sales. The SEC claimed Ripple’s reasons backing its motion challenging the SEC’s improper assertion of the Deliberative Process as “illogical”. The SEC expects the court to deny the defendants’ request to unveil non-public and privileged SEC data.

“The theory behind Defendants’ Motion appears to be that non-Public and privileged comments by SEC employees that Defendants never saw, including about digital Assets other than XRP, are relevant, but what Director Hinman told Ripple’s representatives about XRP is not.”, Plaintiff’s letter to the Judge.

SEC files Motion to Seal

Followed by SEC’s Opposition Motion, the plaintiff has filed Motion to Seal Exhibits. These exhibits include part of Hinman’s deposition. The SEC claims that the deposition holds critical and confidential information about third parties. The commission asserts that the motion to seal parts of Hinman’s deposition data is an effort to protect third parties’ identities along with sensitive legal and business data.