Although the prolonged courtroom standoff between blockchain company Ripple and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) may be over, the regulator does not seem keen on giving up just yet, and it has recently appealed the key ruling in the case.
Specifically, the SEC’s legal team has filed a Notice of Appeal of District Judge Analisa Torres’s final ruling from August 7, 2024, according to the court document shared by James K. Filan, a defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, in an X post on October 2.
Ripple v. SEC final ruling
As a reminder, Judge Torres issued at the time the final judgment in the Ripple v. SEC case, ordering the blockchain company to pay a $125 million penalty for the institutional sales of XRP (XRP), which was much lower than the whopping $2 billion demanded by the SEC.
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Furthermore, the final ruling followed the decision from July 13, 2023, that the sales of XRP to retail investors did not constitute an illegal securities offering and that the digital asset itself did not qualify as a security under the Howey test but that institutional offerings did violate the law.
Notably, multiple cryptocurrency community members, including legal expert Bill Morgan and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, had criticized the regulator’s demanded disgorgement as overreaching and scare tactics, trying to punish and intimidate the industry as a whole.
Ripple comments on SEC’s appeal
Commenting on the most recent development, Garlinghouse promised that his company will continue to “fight in court for as long as we need,” stating that “Ripple, the crypto industry, and the rule of law have already prevailed” and that “XRP’s status as a non-security is the law of the land today.”
At the same time, Ripple’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, referred to the SEC’s appeal as “disappointing, but not surprising” and prolonging “what’s already a complete embarrassment for the agency,” as well as accusing it of engaging in “litigation warfare against the industry.”
Interestingly, Alderoty also mentioned that the SEC’s Enforcement Director, Gurbir Grewal, announced his resignation about an hour before the appeal while also stating that Ripple’s team was evaluating whether to file a cross-appeal in the lawsuit that “has been irrational and misguided from the start.”
Meanwhile, XRP, the token at the center of this saga, reacted to the developments by dipping 13.05% in the last 24 hours, adding to an 11.01% decline across the previous seven days and a loss of 8.03% over the month, at press time trading at $0.5234, as per the latest data on October 3.
