On Thursday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) surprisingly dropped securities-violations charges against blockchain company Ripple’s top leaders.
While the XRP community celebrated the significant legal win for Ripple in the civil case lodged by the SEC in December 2020, a legal expert speculated that dropping the lawsuit against Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen could suggest the SEC is seeking a faster move to an appellate court.
Ripple Celebrates SEC Stunning ‘Surrender’
In a notable turn of events, the U.S. SEC on Sept.19 dropped charges against Ripple Chief Executive Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen after being embroiled in a lawsuit for almost three years.
The SEC had accused the two top Ripple executives of aiding the company in violating federal securities laws related to XRP transactions. However, the securities regulator moved to voluntarily dismiss the case with prejudice, meaning it cannot refile the same charges in the future. Ripple’s legal head, Stuart Alderoty described the SEC’s action as “not a settlement” but rather “a surrender” in a tweet.
The abandoned charges mark a significant triumph for Ripple as the lawsuit is seen as one of the trendsetters in the ongoing spat between the crypto sector and SEC in what defines a security.
The price of the XRP token is up roughly 7.5% today, with most of that upside action coming after the news broke yesterday.
SEC’s Strategy For Quick Appeal In XRP Case?
Nonetheless, even amid the jubilation, some pundits are calling for caution. Katherine Kirkpatrick, the chief legal officer of Cboe Digital, observed that the SEC’s move was a calculated legal strategy.
By doing so, the SEC can hasten the process of appealing the court decision on XRP instead of waiting until the conclusion of the trial in late spring.
The SEC has voluntarily dismissed the case against #Ripple senior execs. This means they can proceed to appeal the Ripple decision much sooner–otherwise they would have had to wait until the conclusion of that trial in the late spring.
— Katherine Kirkpatrick (@kkirkbos) October 19, 2023
This contention concurs with previous remarks by legal whizzes who think the SEC may still attempt to appeal the overall case later. Earlier this month, an attempt by the SEC to appeal its ground-shaking court loss in the Ripple case while the other matters continued through the trial process was rejected.
Notably, the SEC is still pressing forward with its overarching case against Ripple itself. Further, the regulator is actively engaged in a slew of suits against other key pillars of the crypto sector, including Coinbase, Binance, and Tron.
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