Court say no: Ripple execs not required to disclose financial records

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A judge in the United States has dismissed an attempt from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to compel senior executives at Ripple to disclose several years’ worth of personal financial records, according to reports.

In the latest twist in the long-running legal battle between the regulator and Ripple, Judge Sarah Netburn granted a motion to dismiss the SEC request, which would have required Ripple’s Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen to divulge their personal financial records to the court.

The executives had asked the court to dismiss the request, which they described as a “wholly inappropriate overreach” from the securities regulator.

The development is Ripple’s second major victory in recent weeks in the case brought by the SEC, after successfully petitioning the court to see internal communications at the regulator about how it chooses to classify digital currency as a type of security.

According to the judge in dismissing the SEC request, the demand for financial records other than those relating specifically to XRP was irrelevant, and not proportionate to the “needs of the case.”

“The SEC shall withdraw its requests for production seeking the individual defendants’ personal financial records and withdraw its third-party subpoenas seeking the same.”

However, the judge did suggest there may be room to review this position, should it come to light that the executives had lied about XRP transaction records, an outcome that would be expected to turn up later in discovery, if at all.

The developments are the latest turning point in the case that has run since December, when the SEC raised the case against XRP as a security, with Ripple and its executives accused of selling a security to retail investors without appropriate permissions in violation of federal securities law.

Follow CoinGeek’s Crypto Crime Cartel series, which delves into the stream of groups—from BitMEX to Binance, Bitcoin.com, Blockstream, ShapeShift, Coinbase, Ripple and
Ethereum—who have co-opted the digital asset revolution and turned the industry into a minefield for naïve (and even experienced) players in the market.