A prominent defence lawyer and former federal prosecutor, James K. Filan, has stated that he expects the highly awaited Hinman Speech materials to be made public by June 6, as per a previous court order.
These documents pertain to a speech delivered in 2018 by Bill Hinman, the former director of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s corporation finance division, where he expressed the opinion that Ether (ETH) was not a security.
The Hinman documents encompass internal discussions and deliberations within the SEC surrounding this significant speech.
Filan, who has been following the SEC vs Ripple issue for several years, provided an update on the probable unsealing of the documents for public access in a recent Twitter discussion on May 17.
Filan added that the parties concerned have 21 days to produce redacted versions of Summary Judgement documents in compliance with the sealing judgement, referring to a court order made on September 12, 2022. According to this chronology, the June 6 deadline follows the previous judgement by 21 days.
However, it is possible that the expected schedule will be impacted if the SEC decides to appeal or if the matter advances to a settlement. Another attorney who is carefully following the issue, Jeremy Hogan, partner at Hogan & Hogan, stated that the SEC has around 10 days to file an appeal in response to this specific judgement.
Members of the XRP community, including AshleyPROSPER1, believe that the potential unsealing of the documents may motivate both parties involved to consider a settlement, as there could be sensitive information they wish to keep away from the public’s scrutiny.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse expressed the company’s eagerness to have the unredacted Hinman emails become “publicly available soon” in a tweet on May 16.
While Ripple Labs already possesses access to the documents, it considers this aspect of the case as crucial evidence in its defense against the SEC’s allegations that XRP should be classified as a security.
In late December, the SEC submitted a motion to seal the documents, arguing that they were irrelevant to the final outcome of the case and that the SEC’s mission outweighed the public’s right to access the documents.
