Media
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) intends to file a response to Individual Motions to Dismiss. The newest development in their ongoing lawsuit against Ripple Labs.
James K. Filan, one of the attorneys representing Ripple Labs, Tweeted on Friday that the plaintiff’s response will be up to 60 pages in length. In addition, he noted that counsel for the individual defendants, namely Ripple executives Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, does not consent to this response.
The SEC’s letter to United States District Judge Hon. Analisa Torres confirmed this. It also stated that the plaintiff anticipates they will address their reasons for not consenting in a written opposition.
Mr Filan, a defense attorney at Filan LLC in Connecticut, also addressed the need to hear the defendants’ exact reasons. However, he believes the explanation will be “relatively straightforward”. “Best to hear the exact reasons from them than it is to guess,” a later Tweet said.
Motion to Intervene
Over the course of the proceedings, James Filan has kept his followers regularly updated on Twitter. In response to a question from one follower, the former federal prosecutor mentioned that there are no hearings scheduled for the week ahead. However, he did state that both the SEC and Ripple Labs need to respond to a Motion to Intervene from lawyer John E. Deaton by May 3.
Mr Deaton, founder of Crypto Law and reportedly the representative for thousands of XRP users in context to SEC. vs Ripple, filed his motion on April 19. The lawyer, who is Managing Partner at The Deaton Law Firm, has also been very vocal throughout the case. Both on social media and on the Crypto Law blog. On the Motion to Intervene, he Tweeted:
“…This isn’t my motion, it’s the motion of over 16,000 #XRPHolders and there are a lot of very smart people in the #xrpcommunity.”
Developments in SEC vs. Ripple
The SEC’s new filing is the latest development in the SEC’s ongoing suit against Ripple Labs. It directly follows a discovery conference held on Friday. A conference looking into the SEC’s contacting Ripple’s foreign regulators for information. And in doing so, allegedly failing to adhere to the Rules of Federal Procedure and the Hague Convention.
A tense legal tug-of-war went on between both parties in the days leading up to the conference. Ripple Labs’ representatives asserted that the SEC was contacting their regulators for discovery purposes as an intimidation tactic. They filed a motion to get the SEC to stop, which the SEC in turn tried to get the Judge, Hon. Sarah Netburn, to deny.
The plaintiffs riposted with a request to withhold certain information and discovery materials from Ripple Labs. In a letter filed on April 21, the SEC asked the court to “bar Defendants from seeking irrelevant, privileged SEC staff materials that this Court already ruled are not discoverable.”