XRP Lawsuit: SEC marks Ripple’s former discovery as “unresponsive”

The latest update in the XRP lawsuit saw the SEC appeal for a pre-motion conference to order motion, compelling Ripple for “reasonable” discovery of “relevant” video & audio-taped recordings of internal Ripple meetings where Garlinghouse, Larsen & other key employees spoke on topics pertinent to disputes in the lawsuit. Furthermore, the plaintiff demanded the defendants to produce “responsive” documents.

This is following the SEC’s letter motion filed on August 30, 2021, to compel the production of certain internal recordings after the plaintiff revealed that Ripple withheld potential evidence from the SEC despite the plaintiff’s request for relevant recordings in one of its very first letters to Ripple in January 2021. SEC stated that Ripple had earlier agreed to “search all recorded meetings by the custodians of such meetings, meeting name, and other criteria.”.

SEC asserts Ripple documents to be evasive and vague

The SEC noted that they recently learned about Ripple’s failure to search responsive documents. The plaintiff asserts that Ripple’s definition of “custodian” is evasive itself. “Ripple videoconference (VF)”, according to the SEC, is the pretend “custodian” for many recordings that Ripple has refused to search. The SEC objects that Ripple has only provided the electronic location in which a recorded meeting was stored, instead of giving names of the relevant employees who spoke at or attended the meeting.

Furthermore, the SEC noted that the file name of the recorded meeting provides no information as to whether responsive topics were addressed at the meeting. The defendants have submitted the recordings under the file name, “Ripple meeting”, and have further refused to search the recording’s content.

“Ripple’s flawed search methodology excluded highly probative evidence from Ripple’s belated production of responsive recordings until the SEC raised these issues with Ripple. But instead of searching for relevant recordings, Ripple has insisted that the SEC—which has no access to the recordings or even to Ripple’s list of the recordings, which Ripple has also refused to produce—must identify the specific additional recordings it seeks.”