John Deaton, an attorney and the creator of CryptoLaw, recently tweeted a dig at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In Ripple, the judge said SEC lawyers are more interested in advancing their own agenda than adhering to the law. Think about how significant that is. How do SEC lawyers enforce the law if they don’t themselves honor the law. As a former federal prosecutor, I’d be ashamed.
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) March 8, 2023
Ripple Lawsuit: Judge Says SEC Lawyers Prioritize Personal Agenda Over Law
Deaton was reacting to news that a U.S. bankruptcy judge had cleared the way for bankrupt cryptocurrency lender Voyager to sell its assets to Binance in a $1.3 billion deal, overruling the SEC’s objections.
According to Deaton, the Voyager decision is another instance of a federal judge declaring that the SEC’s arguments are whole without foundation.
He uses instances that are related to the Ripple litigation. He claims that a federal judge declared in a written order that SEC attorneys acted hypocritically and lacked loyal allegiance to the law.
Another time, the judge in the Ripple action claimed the SEC lawyers were more concerned with furthering their goal than upholding the law, according to Deaton.
Deaton brought up the hearings in the LBRY action when the judge begged the SEC to be transparent with platform users and secondary market participants.
He continued by saying that the SEC “the SEC basically told the judge it doesn’t provide clarity,” which was one of the reasons he filed an amicus brief in the LBRY lawsuit to ensure that the judge’s finding did not extend to secondary market transactions.
This ended up being successful for the cryptocurrency startup LBRY. Even while the judge determined in summary judgment that the original sales of LBC tokens were an unregistered security offering, he explicitly said in the hearing on January 30 that his decision did not extend to secondary market transactions.
I agree with this 💯 In fact, I decided to do a live stream that just ended discussing the possibility or maybe likelihood of a jury trial to prepare folks. Scott’s analysis is on 🎯 and I believe the expert’s preclusion is fatal for the SEC’s summary judgment motion. https://t.co/uR6n98TOeS
— John E Deaton (@JohnEDeaton1) March 7, 2023
As Deaton noted in the interview on March 8, Ripple had ten expert witnesses, compared to the SEC’s five, who had each been cross-examined by both sides. The exclusion of the witness “who was going to testify as to what XRP token holders thought in their heads when they purchased XRP” gave the blockchain company the upper hand. “Of course, he never interviewed a single XRP holder in his entire career, and he received a $3 million contract from – guess who – the SEC to serve as a witness. So the judge excluded that part of his testimony”, he stated.
He continues to be sure that Ripple will prevail in the meantime. His comments come days after the CEO of the blockchain startup, Brad Garlinghouse, questioned the SEC’s actions again, calling its current assault on the cryptocurrency industry a lousy approach to regulating it.
Read more:
- Ripple Is Predicted To Win More Than The SEC Because Of The Latest Moves
- Judge Torres Refused SEC’s Request To Revoke John Deaton’s Amicus Status In The Ripple Lawsuit