XRP lawsuit: Why this move is ‘burdensome and highly disproportionate’

The SEC v. Ripple lawsuit is yet again trending with Ripple recently responding to the SEC’s emergency request for a “pre-motion conference,” demanding Slack communications of Ripple employees.

In a letter to Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn, lawyers representing Ripple (the “Defendant”) termed SEC’s extraordinary demand as an “extensive and costly fishing expedition that would likely take months to complete and come at a significant cost. The same was further described as “burdensome and highly disproportionate.”

James K. Filan, a lawyer who closely follows the lawsuit between Ripple and the SEC tweeted regarding this development.

#XRPCommunity #SECGOV v. #Ripple #XRP Ripple filed a Motion to Seal exhibits attached to the SEC's Motion regarding Slack communications and to Seal exhibits attached to Ripple's opposition to the SEC's Motion. The parties currently do not agree on what should be sealed. pic.twitter.com/wvDQazOBQf — James K. Filan ???????????????? (@FilanLaw) August 17, 2021

In addition t o this, the SEC’s move was said to have downplayed the significant discovery already received from Ripple and its executives, according to the above mentioned letter, which also stated that,

“…reasonable offer of compromise that Ripple made to produce additional Slack messages from nine custodians that—unlike the SEC’s proposal—focuses on more significant custodians with high Slack usage levels.”

The same was cited as one of the reasons why the “SEC’s motion should be denied and Defendants’ compromise position should be adopted by the Court.”

Moreover, other courts have denied similar discovery requests in the past. The letter added,

“Other courts that have considered similar discovery requests for Slack data have ruled that Slack discovery is uniquely burdensome and costly and have ruled against motions to compel their production in cases where the moving party has already obtained significant discovery.”

Meanwhile, the SEC in their previous filing, had highlighted the importance of these messages and considered them to be necessary and relevant to the case. Not so surprisingly, Ripple and its executives thought otherwise, (“neither critical nor uniquely relevant”), stating three reasons for opposing the SEC’s viewpoints on the same.

Furthermore, as pointed out in the letter, dwelling deep into the collection of such messages would only prolong the discovery phase. As estimated by Ripple’s e-discovery vendor,

“It would likely take 12-15 weeks to collect and process the additional data sought by the SEC—which does not even factor in the time it would take to review the Slack messages for responsiveness and privilege. Granting the SEC’s request would therefore require a significant alteration of the current scheduling order.”

Here’s the schedule on the upcoming updates as seen below.

According to attorney Jeremy Hogan, “The SEC v. Ripple lawsuit is about to see a hell of a week as the fact discovery deadline approaches and many documents remain to be produced.”

John E Deaton, managing partner of the Deaton Law Firm tweeted,

It should be noted by the FinTech community that after a 2 year investigation and after receiving over ONE MILLION pages of discovery and documents, the @SECGov has failed to charge @Ripple @bgarlinghouse or @chrislarsensf with one instance of fraud or misrepresentation. #facts https://t.co/FAMwclBLob — John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) August 16, 2021

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