SEC Crypto Woes: Judicial Rebuke and a Critical Commissioner

The Securities and Exchange Commission has lost its fight to keep Ripple Labs LLC from discovering internal agency communications related to a 2018 speech by then-Director of the Division of Corporation Finance William Hinman.

It lost some face, too, after the judge overseeing the case scolded the agency for litigation tactics she said unnecessarily complicated the attorney-client privilege question at the heart of the dispute.

Judge Sarah Netburn, for the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, called the agency out for argumentative “hypocrisy,” writing that its vacillating arguments suggested the SEC was “adopting its litigation positions ...