Sarah Netburn

Ripple Labs has struck a blow against the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) case after the presiding judge made a ruling that one Ripple community lawyer calls “a very big win for Ripple.” The SEC filed suit in 2020 against Ripple and executives Brad Garlinghouse and Christian Larsen for selling unregistered securities. Presiding Judge Sarah Netburn denied the SEC’s request to reconsider shielding documents under privilege related to a June, 2018 speech made by Ripple’s then-director Willian Hinman. In the speech, Hinman said Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) are not securities. The SEC previously did not object to those documents falling outside deliberative process privilege (DPP) protection, as it suggested they concerned only Hinman’s personal views, not Ripple policies. ...