Attorney Hogan said the U.S. SEC had lost its privilege issue over Hinmanās documents.
In a tweet today, Hogan & Hogan law firm partner attorney Jeremy Hogan reiterates that the Securities and Exchange Commission has lost its āprivilegeā argument over the drafts of Director William Hinmanās June 2018 controversial speech.
With the SEC losing the privilege over Hinmanās documents, the federal agency has chosen to move on to seal the documents from being filed or referenced publicly by Ripple, attorney Hogan said.
According to Hogan, the general rule for sealing documents from being filed publicly is that the moving party must show an overriding interest. Attorney Hogan added that the SECās overriding interest in sealing Hinmanās documents is the agencyās argument that it will fight the DPP privilege in other courts.
āThe SEC lost the privilege issue, so itās moving on to the āsealingā issue.Ā The general rule is the moving party must show an āoverriding interestā ( I think is the verbiage) and the SEC is arguing it will fight the DPP privilege argument in other courts, and that is the interest.āĀ HoganĀ said.
SEC Maintains That Hinmanās Documents Are Privileged
His recent comments on the matter come less than two days after the Securities and Exchange Commission claimed that the drafts of Hinmanās controversial speech were privileged. The SEC made it known in its recently-filed motion toĀ seal certain documents in connection with the summary judgment motion.
The SEC saidĀ it surrendered Hinmanās documents to RippleĀ after the court denied its objection to Judge Sarah Netburnās ruling that the drafts were not protected by deliberative process or attorney-client privileges.
āThe SEC respectfully maintains that the Hinman Speech documents are protected by these privileges. But if these documents were to become a part of the public record, the SEC would be foreclosed from making any such argument in the future (on appeal in this litigation or other litigation), which would be highly prejudicial to the SEC,āĀ the regulator noted.
Hogan Curious to Know the Content of Hinmanās Documents
Reacting to the development, attorney Hogan said it āblows his mindā that the Securities and Exchange Commission is still arguing that Hinmanās documents are privileged despite losing the issue about ā100 times.ā Attorney Hogan added that the agencyās quest to keep Hinmanās documents away from the publicĀ makes him curious to know the content of the documents.
Meanwhile, attorney John Deaton, founder of Crypto Law, said Ripple has not yet released the drafts of Hinmanās speech becauseĀ there is a protective order between the partiesĀ over the documents.