SEC and Ripple Lawsuit have been in the court for more than a year the legal experts suggest that the case will need at least six more months to conclude. However, in a surprising turn of events a new circumstantial piece of evidence has surfaced that can change the pace of the case settlement. A series of emails from SEC has been submitted to the court as evidence recently.
The emails were provided by an NGO called Empower Oversight. The emails reveal a possible bias and a conflict of interest on the part of SEC officials towards Ripple Labs’ native token XRP. William Hinman is the former SEC official who has already been questioned during the XRP lawsuit. The new evidence once again points out suspicious behavior from the ex-government employee.
NGO Unveils Emails Containing Useful Information Related to Ripple Lawsuit
William Hinman is connected with his former firm named Simpson Thacher in the light of the email correspondence. The NGO Empower Oversight claimed that the main aim of releasing the emails was to reveal that SEC has been biased in its treatment of Ripple Labs token. The NGO also claimed that SEC has been selective and targeted the crypto businesses that served its internal interests.
The emails suggest that Hinman was in contact with his former NYC firm despite the suspicions and legal objections. These emails also show records of communication between Simpson Thacher co-founder Josh Bonnie while SEC was dealing with the allegations of cutting deals with Ethereum main investors and core developers.
The correspondent in the revealing emails suggests that former SEC official Hinman delivered his crypto-related speech to promote bias in the cryptocurrency market. Hinman declared Ethereum to be immune from any legal liability in his speech that paved the way for the first 60 million Ether token sales. The unregistered securities lawsuit filed by SEC has taken a very different turn.
Shira Minton is the Ethics counsel at SEC who went on record to testify that she had issued warnings to Hinman to refrain from contacting Simpson Thacher due to a possible conflict of interest. Empower Oversight has thus far released 200 paged emails for the benefit of the court. It is worth noting that the NGO applied for FOIA or Freedom of Information Act request to SEC last year in August which was declined.