Ripple’s defense calls for Binance documents in SEC lawsuit
The lawsuit between Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has now involved another player in the crypto industry. Largest crypto exchange in the world Binance was brought in by the case defendants.
According to recent filings made to the New York court on behalf of Ripple Chief Executive Officer Brad Garlinghouse’s, the legal team has requested Binance to provide documents supporting the case.
As noted in the filing, these documents are “relevant to the case and unobtainable through other means”. The filing refers to U.S. laws concerning the Department of State and the Hague Convention and asked the court to issue a letter of request for the Central Authority of the Cayman Island to request evidence from Cayman based subsidiary Binance Holdings Limited.
The filing said:
“Mr. Garlinghouse seeks foreign discovery on the basis of his good faith belief that [Binance Holdings Limited] possesses unique documents and information concerning this case, and specifically, concerning the process by which transactions in XRP allegedly conducted by Mr. Garlinghouse on foreign digital asset trading platforms were conducted.”
Importantly, with the filing, Ripple’s defense are challenging SEC claims from the that the Ripple CEO sold more than 357 million XRP tokens on “worldwide” crypto trading platforms to investors “all over the world.” The provision of documents by Binance is therefore crucial.
Securities Act of 1993
The lawyers further cited Section Five of the Securities Act of 1933, which alleges illegal XRP sales would only apply to domestic sales and offers of securities:
“As the SEC knows, Mr. Garlinghouse’s sales of XRP were overwhelmingly made on digital asset trading platforms outside of the United States […] the discovery that Mr. Garlinghouse seeks will be relevant to demonstrating that the offers and sales that the SEC challenges did not occur in this country and are not subject to the law that the SEC has invoked in this case.”
The latest request is another move in what is already considered an historical trial. One of which the verdict can have lasting impact on the industry. It is reported that the pre-trial discovery process will end October 15, nearly a year after the lawsuit was filed by the SEC.
Garlinghouse is getting documents from Binance related to his sales of XRP to it. This request goes to our third issue in the case which is “jurisdiction over the sales.” SEC cannot disgorge profits to “foreign” entities or individuals. These documents will fight damages. https://t.co/ZYzE0YD3nU
— Jeremy Hogan (@attorneyjeremy1) August 2, 2021
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Source: igaming
