Ripple and the SEC’s legal fight continues ahead of final judgment

Ripple’s chief legal officer said that the new filing from the SEC is “more of the same”

May 8, 2024 01:09 pm

Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse | Ben Solomon Photo LLC for Blockworks

One of the final battles between the Securities and Exchange Commission and Ripple continues.

The case, initially launched in 2020, still faces a final judgment. The SEC is seeking nearly $2 billion in a final judgment. A sum, Ripple argued, that is too high. The firm asked the court to lower the penalty to “no more than $10 million” in a filing late last month.

The SEC, in its newest filing, disagrees with Ripple unsurprisingly.

Ripple, the regulator said, failed to argue how “that negligible ‘low’ penalty would meaningfully punish its violations or deter it or others from future large-scale capital raises without required registration.”

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The regulator is arguing that the $1.9 billion it’s seeking pales in comparison to the $1 billion that Ripple made in violating Section 5 of the Securities Act and “the multi-billion-dollar business it built selling XRP.”

Ripple, on the other hand, argues that the multi-million sum is fair when looking at other crypto cases like BlockFi, Genesis Global and Block.one. The SEC disagreed with the argument, saying the listed cases were just settlements.

“Ripple has failed to meet its burden of showing that the SEC’s calculation is not a reasonable approximation of Ripple’s ill-gotten gains,” the SEC wrote.

On X, Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty said that the filing was “more of the same from the SEC.”

“The good news is that we are closer than ever to putting this lawsuit behind us, though unfortunately, many are just starting the journey. We trust the Court will approach the remedies phase fairly,” he continued.

The filings suggest that the final judgment is looming, though it’s unclear what the court will decide with two radically different proposals.

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