Ripple Scores Massive Win Against SEC In Ongoing Crypto Lawsuit

In a major development in Ripple Labs' ongoing battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the cryptocurrency solutions provider scored a massive victory after a judge denied the motion filed by the financial watchdog asking the court to seal internal documents containing the speech of former director William Hinman.

Judge Analisa Torres of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled Tuesday that sealing the documents would not be related to preserving the candor and openness within the government agency, "nor would such an interest be substantial enough to outweigh the strong presumption of public access."

The court's decision is considered a major win for Ripple Labs, which was accused by the SEC of selling its token XRP as an unregistered security.

The documents contain Hinman's position on whether crypto assets are considered securities.

In June 2018, Hinman, who was at the time a director at SEC's Division of Corporation Finance, mentioned in a speech that sales of Ether were not securities transactions.

After the news broke about the court's latest decision, XRP saw an 8% increase in its value and was trading in the green zone at $0.4561.

Ripple wanted to boost its fair notice defense in its legal battle against the agency. It has made Hinman's speech a major point of its argument.

The cryptocurrency community is paying attention to the ongoing court battle between Ripple and SEC since it could set a precedent on how U.S. regulators and agencies would classify cryptocurrencies.

Ripple Labs is not the only crypto business charged by the SEC for selling unregistered securities. The financial watchdog is currently conducting a crackdown on the nascent space and has filed similar lawsuits against multiple crypto businesses.

In January, the agency alleged that the Gemini Earn program constituted an offer and sale of securities under its law and charged crypto firms Genesis and Gemini with selling unregistered securities.

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, who was happy with the court's latest ruling, had previously said the company will continue its crypto operations offshore if it loses the ongoing court battle with the SEC.

XRP saw a 5.05% gain over the past 24 hours and was trading up at $0.444 with a 24-hour volume of $1,413,297,480 Wednesday morning, according to data from CoinMarketCap.