Judge Grants Ripple’s Motion To File A Sur-Reply Against The SEC, What This Means

Former federal prosecutor James Filan recently revealed that Judge Sarah Netburn has granted a motion that Ripple recently filed with the court in its case against the SEC. This could end up being a turning point, considering that the crypto firm had noted in its motion that the “court would benefit” if it were allowed to file a Sur-reply to the SEC’s latest motion. 

Court Allows Ripple To File A Sur-Reply

Filan stated in an X (formerly Twitter) post that the court had granted Ripple’s motion to file a Sur-reply, meaning that the crypto firm can now file an additional reply to the SEC’s motion. The Commission had initially filed a motion to compel Ripple to produce certain documents. The crypto firm then filed a response arguing why the court should not grant this motion. 

Following that, the SEC had a right to reply to Ripple’s response, which it did. At that point, the SEC’s motion was taken as fully briefed, and all that was left was for the Judge to give her ruling. However, Ripple felt the need to file an additional reply, and that was why it had to file a motion asking the court to permit it to file a Sur-reply. 

Granting a party leave to file this reply is usually left at the court’s discretion, and in this case, Judge Netburn could have easily decided not to grant it, even though the SEC had no objection. In its motion, Ripple had noted that the sur-reply letter was to “correct a significant factual mischaracterization” made by the Commission. 

The Content Of The Sur-reply Letter

Ripple had filed the sur-reply letter alongside the motion asking for leave just in case the court granted it. In the letter, the crypto firm’s lawyers sought to correct where the SEC had mentioned in its reply letter that Ripple“would not be burdened in producing” the post-complaint Institutional Sales contracts. 

According to the company, “that is false,” as it has “specifically objected to the SEC’s request as overly burdensome.” Furthermore, the crypto firm highlighted another misstatement made by the Commission, which alleged that Ripple had “recently cataloged and presumably produced” all its XRP sales contacts from 2020 to June 2023 in the ongoing class action suit.

Ripple claims that it did not “produce any contracts post-dating December 22, 2020,” and neither did it catalog these contracts in connection with that case. Therefore, the crypto firm humbly requested that the court “disregard these misstatements of fact.”

Meanwhile, Ripple also accused the SEC of requesting contacts beyond the ones relating to ODL transactions. The Commission is apparently seeking contracts that relate to “other distributions,” which Judge Analisa Torres already ruled are not investment contracts.  

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