Ripple Labs has taken a firm stance against the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) recent move, aiming to secure an interlocutory appeal following a summary judgment order in an ongoing case that has sent ripples through the cryptocurrency industry.
The company’s Chief Legal Officer, Stuart Alderoty, expressed the company’s opposition to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Alderoty highlighted the court’s assertion that no extraordinary circumstances justified departing from the rule that mandates the resolution of all issues pertaining to all parties before an appeal.
The courtroom battle between Ripple, its CEO Brad Garlinghouse, co-founder Chris Larsen, and the SEC commenced in 2020, with the regulatory body accusing Ripple of amassing $1.3 billion through the unregistered sale of XRP tokens. This legal wrangling has since garnered significant attention within the cryptocurrency sector.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled in favor of Ripple’s employment of a blind bid procedure during programmatic XRP purchases. This decision elicited widespread applause from the cryptocurrency community and substantially increased XRP’s market value. Despite this triumph for Ripple, the judge also decreed that the direct sales of the token to institutional investors should be classified as securities, representing a partial victory for the SEC.
The SEC’s response to these outcomes has been resolute. The regulatory body communicated its intention to seek an interlocutory appeal from the Southern District of New York court, driven by its pursuit of rectifying the partial setback in the ongoing legal action against Ripple Labs. Citing a precedent involving Terraform Labs, the SEC urged Judge Torres to initiate an interlocutory review.
A notable facet of the SEC’s appeal pertains to the court’s decision on the legality of programmatic sales and “other distributions” of XRP, encompassing token exchanges for goods and services. The agency made this clear in a recent media conference.
These recent developments have set the stage for an intricate legal tug-of-war, with Ripple Labs and the SEC locked in a battle that carries wide-ranging implications for the cryptocurrency landscape. As the industry watches closely, the outcomes of these legal maneuvers are poised to shape the regulatory framework that governs digital assets and their transactions.
Ripple Labs’ vocal opposition to the SEC’s interlocutory appeal request marks a new chapter in a legal saga that has garnered substantial attention. With the court’s recent rulings having both favored and challenged Ripple’s position, the cryptocurrency sector awaits the resolution of this complex legal dispute with keen interest. The outcomes will inevitably reverberate far beyond Ripple and the SEC, influencing the broader trajectory of the cryptocurrency industry.
