TL;DR Breakdown
- Judge grants Garlinghouse request for Binance document to aid his defense.
- Binance to yield document to court after court sends order to exchange.
Upon the request of Bradley Garlinghouse, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ripple Lab, a Binance document to be used in his defense against the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC), has been approved for use by the court.
James K. Filan, a defense lawyer, announced in a tweet stating that Garlinghouse’s motion to obtain international discovery has been granted.
Garlinghouse submitted a request letter appealing to obtain Cayman Island’s Binance documents under the Hague Convention of 18 March 1970 on taking of evidence abroad in civil or commercial matters.
The motion was filed to gather data on all XRP sales made on Binance, the largest crypto exchange by trading volume.
The Binance document was classed relevant to the case and unobtainable through other means.
Sarah Netburn, the presiding judge in Ripple’s ongoing lawsuit with the SEC, granted Brad Garlinghouse’s motion to obtain the Binance document.
The motion was recently approved, which is not surprising as the SEC did not object to it. The approval has been considered a small win for Ripple in the legal case.
The court will now issue a Letter of Request to the Cayman Islands-based exchange on behalf of Garlinghouse. Binance, if they yield to the court order, will provide documents that may be used as evidence in the case.
Binance document importance to Ripple’s defense
In the motion filed to obtain a plea, the document proved that the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple’s XRP sales is invalid under Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933.
SEC the petitioner, claims that Garlinghouse sold 357 million units of XRP on “worldwide” digital asset trading platforms like Binance to investors “all over the world” and violated Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933.
The defendant is filing for a dismissal of SEC on claims that SEC can not prove XRP’s domestic offers and sales made in the United States; instead, they rely on overwhelming foreign offers as alleged.
