Court Approves Ripple’s Time Extension Request to Respond to the SEC’s Motion to Protect Hinman’s Documents 

Ripple’s response to the SEC’s bid to protect Hinman’s documents is now due on May 13, 2022 

The court has granted Ripple’s request for an extension of time to file a response to the Security and Exchange Commission’s assertions that William Hinman’s documents are protected by attorney-client privilege.

This comes less than 24 hours after the blockchain company and its Individual Defendants, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen filed the request.

Following recent developments, Ripple and the Individual Defendants are expected to file a response to the SEC’s recent motion on or before May 13, 2022.

The approval, which came through a text-only order, was shared by attorney James K. Filan, a former U.S. federal prosecutor who has been vocal about the SEC v. Ripple lawsuit.

“The Court has granted the Ripple Defendants’ request for an extension of time to respond to the SEC’s claim that the Hinman documents are protected by the attorney-client privilege. The response is due by May 13, 2022,” attorney Filan wrote on the popular microblogging platform Twitter today.

#XRPCommunity #SECGov v. #Ripple #XRP The Court has granted the Ripple Defendants' request for an extension of time to respond to the SEC’s claim that the Hinman documents are protected by the attorney-client privilege. The response is due by May 13, 2022.

— James K. Filan ????96k+ (beware of imposters) (@FilanLaw) May 3, 2022

SEC’s Determination to Protect Hinman’s Documents

Recall that the SEC has been bent on protecting Hinman’s documents from being used as part of evidence in its lawsuit against Ripple.

The documents contain comments made by Hinman in 2018, when he stated that Ethereum, which was Ripple’s closest rival at the time, is not a security.

Ripple has argued that there is a chance that Hinman, who was the former SEC’s finance director at the time, had also commented about the regulatory status of XRP.

However, all efforts to get the complete documents since the beginning of the lawsuit have not yielded positive results, with the securities regulator still poised to keep Hinman’s 2018 comments away from Ripple’s reach.

The SEC has previously asserted that the document reflects Hinman’s personal views and does not represent that of the entire organization.

However, the court ruled last month that the SEC should surrender the documents to Ripple, while granting the agency a 14-day period to file an objection if they do not agree with the decision.

In a bid to object to the court’s ruling, the SEC noted that the 2018 Hinman documents contain conversations between the former SEC finance director and attorneys from the agency, and as such should be protected from Ripple.