Ripple Labs long legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is close to the end, but the commission still has a few cards left to play.
The SEC issued a court filing on Wednesday declaring its intention to appeal a recent judge’s ruling that Ripple Labs violated securities laws by selling to institutional investors, but not to regular people through exchanges.
An interlocutory appeal is a kind of request to a higher court to check decisions made during an ongoing case. The SEC mentioned that reviewing these decisions is important because they could affect how the SEC handles various matters in the future.
“The SEC seeks to certify the Court’s holding that Defendants’ ‘Programmatic’ offers and sales to XRP buyers over crypto asset trading platforms and Ripple’s ‘Other Distributions’ in exchange for labor and services did not involve the offer or sale of securities,” the SEC said in a court filing. “Interlocutory review is warranted here.”
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Legal battle started in 2020 when SEC sued Ripple Labs
Ripple Labs is a technology company specializing in blockchain-based solutions for cross-border payments and financial transactions. It has developed the Ripple payment protocol and its associated cryptocurrency, XRP.
Presently, XRP is the world’s fifth largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, according to cryptocurrency tracker, Coingecko.
According to the SEC’s submission, Ripple is expected to provide a response by mid August, and approximately one week from the date of the letter’s submission. The SEC has suggested submitting an opening brief outlining its appeal two days after the response. Ripple will then have two weeks to respond, and if the judge approves the filing, the SEC will have an additional week to reply to Ripple’s response.
This marks the most recent development in Ripple’s ongoing legal clash with the SEC, which started when the SEC filed a lawsuit against Ripple, claiming that the company had been selling XRP as securities without proper registration.
The SEC’s allegations targeted Ripple and its two co-founders, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and executive chairman Chris Larsen, asserting that the company had gathered USD$1.3 billion through the sales.
Gary Gensler, the chair of the SEC, expressed his “disappointment” regarding certain aspects of the decision last month. Additionally, the SEC labeled the case as “wrongly decided” in its lawsuit against Terraform Labs and Terra’s CEO Do Kwon the following week.
Having resolved its legal stance, the company is currently aiming to broaden its operations in the UK and Ireland. This involves pursuing the required regulatory licenses to engage in crypto-related activities.
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