Revealed! To Bring Ripple (XRP) To Court, SEC Chief William Hinman Receives Millions Of Dollars

It was revealed that the person who sued XRP in court got paid from a supporting company (CryptoActu)

JAKARTA – When the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) took the cryptocurrency Ripple (XRP) to court, a non-profit organization Empower Oversight filed a lawsuit against the SEC. The organization demanded the SEC to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Not only that, Empower Oversight also disclosed communications between senior officials and their current and former employers regarding crypto assets. Empower Oversight accused the SEC of having a conflict of interest in dealing with cryptocurrencies.

Plaintiffs consider SEC officials to be subservient to the claim that digital assets such as XRP are securities while other assets including Ethereum are referred to as non-securities.

In more detail, Empower Oversight actually highlighted former SEC executive William Hinman who allegedly received large sums of money from a law firm named Simpson Thacher affiliated with the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance when Hinman served at the SEC.

“Hinman reportedly continued to receive millions of dollars from Simpson Thacher while at the SEC. Simpson Thacher is a member of the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, an industry organization that aims to 'promote the use of Enterprise Ethereum.'”

Previously, Hinman mentioned that Ethereum (ETH) is not a security. After the statement, the value of Ethereum skyrocketed. After Hinman's tenure with the SEC ended, he joined Simpson Thecher.

“In a June 2018 speech in his official capacity as an SEC official, Hinman stated that Ethereum's cryptocurrency, Ether, is not a security. After his declaration, the value of Ether increased significantly. After leaving the SEC at the end of 2020, Hinman rejoined Simpson Thacher as a partner."

It did not stop there, the lawsuit also dragged another name at the SEC, namely the head of the SEC's Enforcement Division, Marc Berger. For information, Berger is also one of the important figures who filed a lawsuit against Ripple Labs. He is known to follow the actions of Hinman who left the SEC and chose to join Simpson Thacher.

In December 2020, Ripple Labs was sued by the SEC for allegedly issuing XRP as an unregistered security. Empower Oversight revealed that SEC chairman Jay Clayton declared Bitcoin (BTC) not a security. This also caused the price of BTC to skyrocket.

According to court documents, it wasn't long before Clayton left the SEC to join One River Asset Management, a crypto hedge fund that exclusively deals with Bitcoin and Ethereum. Accordingly, the SEC is judged to have failed to comply with six of their eight FOIA requests. Facing the lawsuit, the SEC admitted that they had no information about this matter.