Court Denies SEC’s Attorney-Client Privilege for Hinman

In the latest twist in the SEC-Ripple lawsuit, Judge Sarah Netburn has rejected the agency’s attorney-client privilege claims. The claim was regarding the draft of a speech by William Hinman, the former Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance.

The SEC did not want to share details regarding a speech made by Hinman in 2018. He had made a public speech at the Yahoo Markets Summit, where he said that Ethereum turned from a security to a non-security. This was when there was no proper guidance from the SEC on how digital assets would be classified. Hence, the importance.

The SEC maintained that Hinman should be acknowledged as a client of SEC lawyers who gave him legal counsel. Nevertheless, Ripple argued that Hinman was not a client of the SEC regarding an outside activity, such as the speech.

Defense lawyer James K Filan has followed the lawsuit closely and has been an important source. Filan took to Twitter and shared the document that denied the SEC’s motion. This sure is a big win for Ripple.

Filan called the ruling a “body slam.”

Big win for Ripple?

The court document called the SEC’s motion “hypocrisy.” On the one hand, the SEC argues that the speech is not relevant to how the agency will regulate the crypto industry. However, on the other hand, Hinman sought and got legal advice from SEC counsel in drafting his speech.

The court document stated,

“The documents must be produced.”

Furthermore, Jeremy Hogan, a partner at the legal firm Hogan & Hogan, shared his thoughts on the ruling. Hogan thinks that things will move relatively fast from here on.

Many in the Ripple and XRP community believe the Hinman speech draft to be a pivotal point in the lawsuit. Moreover, this comes at a critical point after Patrick Doody’s report. Doody claimed to know why people were purchasing XRP tokens. However, the ruling against the SEC’s client privilege motion could thwart Doody’s claims.