SEC v. Ripple: Lawsuit to take “several months, if not longer”, said the SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission has replied to the court in further support of its motion to compel Ripple to search and produce relevant Slack messages to or from 22 key employees.

The plaintiff argued that Ripple did not dispute it had agreed to do that and raised no objection in doing so until July 30.

“While Ripple now tries to paint the Slack messages it refuses to search as not “[u]niquely [r]elevant” to this litigation (presumptively, as Ripple has not reviewed them), Ripple’s motion to seal concedes that at least “some” Slack messages are relevant. In fact, since the SEC filed its Motion, Ripple has produced new, highly relevant Slack messages”, the SEC said in the letter.

The agency is replying to Ripple’s refusal to hand over the terabytes of Slack messages, which the blockchain firm argues are unreasonably duplicative of Ripple’s extensive production of over one million pages of discovery.

In addition, the defendants claimed such demand would likely take months to complete and come at a very significant cost.

In its reply, the SEC said the time-consuming process “should present no issue in this case” as the SEC does not object to Ripple’s production of the Slack messages while expert discovery occurs or even afterwards (see lawsuit agenda).

“The Individual Defendant’s motions to dismiss are still pending, the parties plan to file motions for summary judgment, and no trial date is imminent”, the SEC stated.

“In sum, there is no realistic prospect that the parties will fully resolve this case for several months, if not longer”.

For that reason, the SEC says there is no need to cut off discovery of documents that are critical to the trial and that Ripple agreed to produce until last month.

SEC v. Ripple: Bombshells in deposition pave the way for win on Fair Notice, says expert

Jeremy Hogan, a popular attorney within the XRP community, said in June that with the 50-day extension for discovery, no settlement is expected to happen until its close.

“So, any settlement is likely to be after at least the close of fact discovery and that is now early September and even more likely to be after October 16.”

What if both parties don’t reach a deal? “Then I believe the two main issues will be decided by Judge Torres at the summary judgment”.

Motions must be filed within 30 days of the close of discovery and that should be November 16, but responses to motions and sur-replies could push any summary judgment to an unknown date in the future.

“I don’t see the case being decided at summary judgment until early 2022 – maybe January”, he concluded.