Ripple v. SEC Lawsuit Update June 27th

The ongoing case between Ripple Labs and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission is in its trial phase. And although this is technically the point of the lawsuit where it is supposed to get resolved, there’s no telling when it might actually end.

That said, here’s what’s been going on lately as of June 27th.

Current Standing in the Ripple v. SEC Lawsuit

One of the most important developments in the past few weeks was that the Commission actually lowered its demand for a fine from a whopping $2 billion to $102.6 million.

The SEC stated at the time:

“Ripple avoids comparing the Terraform settlement’s penalty to the gross profit of the violative conduct. That ratio ($420 million/$3.587 billion) is significantly higher: 11.7%. Applying it to the $876.3 million in gross profits, the SEC here asks the court to disgorge, which results in a much larger figure, a $102.6 million penalty, than the $10 million ceiling Ripple insists on.”

Ripple’s legal team demanded a lower penalty to the tune of no more than $10 million.

Meanwhile, the SEC’s Chief of the Crypto Asset and Cyber Unit – David Hirsh – resigned.

Ripple is also facing legal challenges on another front – in California, where its CEO Brad Garlinghouse is a defendant in a civil lawsuit. However, recently, there have been positive developments, with the company’s chief lawyer noting:

The CA judge dismissed all allegations suggesting that Ripple violated federal securities law. The NY ruling that XRP is not a security stands undisturbed.

Bashing Gary Gensler

Both Stuart Alderoty (Ripple’s legal chief) and Brad Garlinghouse recently took definitively negative stands against the SEC’s chairman Gary Gensler.

The latter said the other day, talking about crypto:

This is a field where the leading lights from a couple of years ago are either in jail, about to go to jail, or awaiting extradition.

To this, Garlinghouse responded:

Absolute nonsense coming from Gary Gensler today. 

And this slender about “all crypto execs going to jail” from the man who completely missed FTX (and actually cozied up to SBF) and wasn’t even invited to the DOJ announcement about Binance.

If he was really “working for the American people” as he says, he would have been fired a long time ago.

Gensler will cause Biden to lose the election.

Meanwhile, Alderoty also had something to say on Gensler’s recent comments.

Note to @GaryGensler: The courts aren’t “adjusting”…they are finding that you are breaking the law by exceeding your statutory authority. https://t.co/rne7JRygm2

— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) June 26, 2024