Key takeaways:
- US SEC’s move to appeal its defeat against Ripple Labs, the business in charge of issuing the XRP token, was denied by district court judge Analisa Torres.
- The verdict does not result in a complete loss for the regulator because Judge Torres set a trial date on April 23, 2024, to resolve the case’s outstanding issues.
United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) move to appeal its defeat against Ripple Labs, the business in charge of issuing the XRP token, was denied by district court judge Analisa Torres.
In a ruling from the court dated October 3, Judge Torres rejected the SEC’s request and declared that the agency had failed to meet its burden of demonstrating that there were serious legal concerns or grounds for divergent viewpoints.
“The SEC’s motion for certification of interlocutory appeal is denied, and the SEC’s request for a stay is denied as moot.”
Notably, the verdict does not result in a complete loss for the regulator because Judge Torres set a trial date on April 23, 2024, to resolve the case’s outstanding issues.
On July 13, Judge Torres issued a partial ruling in Ripple’s favor, stating that retail sales of the XRP cryptocurrency did not satisfy the requirements for becoming a security under the law. The court did rule that by directly selling XRP tokens to institutional investors, Ripple had violated securities regulations.
The regulator appealed this ruling in August, claiming there was “substantial ground for differences of opinion” about the relevant statutes.
To allay any potential legal problems, numerous exchanges delisted the XRP coin in December 2020 after the SEC initially filed its case against Ripple, its CEO Brad Garlinghouse, and co-founder Chris Larsen. Many cryptocurrency companies declared they would relist the token or investigate doing so in the future after Torres’ verdict in July.
The prominent cryptocurrency exchanges Binance and Coinbase are among the companies that the commission has allegedly targeted for securities violations in recent months.
Following an appeal requiring a review of its application for a spot Bitcoin ETF, asset management Grayscale won a legal battle against the SEC on August 29.
