As the cryptocurrency community is still waiting for the official conclusion of the long-running legal battle between Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the judge in the case has denied the regulator’s request for an early appeal.
Specifically, Judge Analisa Torres has rejected the motion filed by the securities regulator on August 18, in which the SEC had made a move toward making an interlocutory appeal, as per the court document shared by defense attorney James K. Filan in an X post on October 3.
According to the explanation of the decision denying the appeal, “the Court (…) ‘examine[d] the totality of circumstances surrounding Defendants’ different transactions and schemes involving the sale and distribution of XRP, and ultimately found that the Institutional Sales were sales of securities, but the Programmatic Sales and Other Distributions were not.”
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“In other words, (…) the Court concluded that the Programmatic Buyers did not ‘ha[ve] every bit as good a reason [as the Institutional Buyers] to believe that [Defendants] would take their capital contributions and use [the capital] to generate profits on their behalf.’”
As a reminder, the SEC had filed a motion to certify an interlocutory appeal on August 18, pertaining to two parts of the Judge’s summary judgment, which “involve controlling questions of law as to which there are substantial grounds for difference of opinion, and obtaining an appellate ruling on these issues now may materially advance the ultimate termination of this litigation,” as Finbold reported at the time.
What this means
Commenting on the court’s decision, Jeremy Hogan explained that it means that “the case either goes to trial in April or goes away,” as well as that “this Order allowed the Judge to explain parts of her ruling even better, making an appeal that much harder for the SEC to win,” labeling the situation a “disaster for the agency.”
As he further added:
“I like how the Judge here clarifies her holding, at the same time reminding the SEC that speculating in a commodity alone does not meet the test but that you ALSO must rely on the ‘efforts of others,’ which the SEC failed to prove.”
Following the positive news for Ripple, the XRP token that has been at the center of the prolonged court standoff has started to increase its price, gaining 4.2% on its daily chart, which added to its gains of 6.77% across the previous week, and 5.05% over the month, currently trading at $0.53.
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