In Brief:
- The Judge has ordered Ripple to hand over one million missing Slack messages between employees to SEC.
- The SEC filed a motion last month requesting these messages.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn has ordered Ripple to hand over more than 1 million internal employee Slack messages to the US SEC. The SEC had sought to access these communications for its ongoing feud with Ripple for selling unregistered securities.
According to the lawyer James K. Filan, most of the motions filed by Ripple’s legal counsel and SEC have been granted by the court.
Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn ruled that the SEC can access the Slack messages between Ripple employees as they are relevant to the case.
The SEC had filed a motion last month requesting over a million messages. The SEC claimed that the previous tranche of communications data was incomplete. The agency further asserted that the missing documents were necessary to build a complete and accurate record for the summary judgment and trial.
In response, Ripple argued that the SEC’s request was burdensome. It would take months to gather all the Slack messages from all the identified custodians. Additionally, the firm estimated that the collection and processing of the Slack data would cost over $1 million.
However, Judge Netburn signified that Ripple’s arguments are superficial. He added that the company will have to produce Slack messages from the 22 email custodians named by the SEC as they are relevant.
“The Court grants the SEC’s Motion to Compel Production of Ripple’s Slack communications in a Text Only Order. The Order states: “ORDER granting 283 Letter Motion. The Slack messages sought are relevant to the parties’ claims and defenses and proportional to the needs of the case. Any burden to Ripple is outweighed by its previous agreement to produce the relevant Slack messages, the relative resources of the parties, and the amount in controversy”, he stated.
As for an update on Ripple’s Motion to Expose SEC Employees’ XRP Holdings, the regulator asked until September 8, 2021, to respond.
