SEC Scores Points As Judge Orders Ripple To Hand Over 1 Million Slack Messages

Ripple, the creators of the XRP token, has been ordered to produce one million missing Slack messages between its employees. This order comes after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) petitioned Ripple to hand them over.

The SEC stated that Ripple had agreed to produce this information at the beginning of the discovery phase but they later changed their minds stating that the exercise is an “extensive and costly fishing expedition” that will take up significant time and resources. Ripple stated that it would cost up to $1 million to produce these messages but judge Sarah Netburn deemed the messages critical and unique evidence for the SEC’s ongoing case against the multi-billion dollar company for selling unregistered securities.

According to the order, Ripple now has to produce Slack messages from 22 custodians listed out by the SEC. The order further ruled that Slack messages are relevant to both the parties and Ripple’s perceived burden is outweighed by its previous agreement to produce the same.

It read, “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.”

This order from the judge comes after the SEC was compelled to release some documents. During the conference call held on 31 August regarding the SEC’s privilege dispute, the judge also ordered the regulatory watchdog to produce internal documents regarding discussions over the nature of XRP and ETH, for which she will hold an in-camera review.

What you should know

• The lawsuit started in December 2020 when the SEC filed against Ripple alleging that Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder and former CEO, Chris Larsen had been conducting an “unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering” with their XRP token sales.
• This caused the XRP token to nosedive by over 50% when the news broke as investors panic sold the cryptocurrency. XRP has however recovered since then, trading nearly $2 at the peak of the bull run before the May 2021 crash.
• In June, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen filed a twin motion to dismiss the SEC case by petitioning international authorities to request documents from several other non-U.S.-based crypto exchanges including Bitstamp, Huobi and Upbit. These documents requested from these exchanges are expected to exonerate the pair from all charges.

XRP is trading $1.27 as of the time of this writing, up over 16% in the last 7 days as the altcoin market maintains bullish stature.