The SEC filed its reply brief in the Ripple case on Monday, and the redacted version of the brief was made available to the public on May 8. Stuart Alderoty, Chief Legal Officer of Ripple, stated, “SEC — failing to faithfully apply the law and trying to pull the wool over the Judge’s eyes.”
The decade long legal tangle between SEC and Ripple’s is closer to the concluding part. The SEC’s redacted remedies reply revolved around the possibility for Ripple to repeat the violations. The legal proceedings of SEC Vs. Ripple started because of the institutional sales of XRP.
According to the matters enclosed in the brief, SEC claimed that Ripple’s primary business continues to be the same since 2013. Ripple’s ODL Institutional Sales up to 2020 was already found by the court to violate the law. Also, Ripple has not disputed that all its sales since 2020 are unregistered ODL sales. Furthermore, the SEC has argued that another breach of law can be anticipated in the absence of an injunction.
Ripple asserts that the court need not worry if Ripple would violate US securities law as it has gained various licenses from various countries. In addition to that, they clearly explained, “do not treat XRP sales as sales of securities.” Stuart Alderoty stated on X,
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.
Despite SEC’s arguments, Ripple revealed that its past conduct was blameless, referring to its volunteer act of giving information about the business to SEC.
Earlier Ripple has made an argument to lower the penalty of $10 million slashing down SEC’s demand for $2 billion. SEC claimed that reducing the penalty could encourage other crypto asset issuers to violate section 5 of the securities act. Yet, Ripple’s chief legal officer was confident that the court would make a fair decision and communities are anticipating the outcome of the case.
