The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is asking for fines and penalties totalling $2 billion from Ripple Labs in their legal fight over the XRP cryptocurrency. This came from Ripple’s Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty in social media posts on Monday.
Alderoty said the SEC has filed secret court papers asking U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres for these massive penalties. The SEC will publicly file versions with redactions on Tuesday.
Alderoty accused the SEC of trying to “punish and intimidate Ripple – and the whole industry,” instead of properly following the law.
In July, Judge Torres ruled that Ripple’s $728.9 million sales of XRP to hedge funds and sophisticated buyers broke the law on unregistered securities sales. But she sided with Ripple that XRP sold on public crypto exchanges did not count as securities.
Berto Tordecilla
The SEC sued Ripple, CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen in 2020, claiming they illegally raised over $1.3 billion by selling unregistered XRP securities. The SEC dropped the remaining claims against Garlinghouse and Larsen last October.
Ripple will reply to the SEC’s penalty request in April. While the SEC partly won, the case is significant as other crypto firms facing SEC lawsuits have used Judge Torres’s ruling to defend themselves.
The XRP token was up 1.85% this morning, following Bitcoin higher to trade at $0.6525. A meaningful break above $0.75 will signal a move higher, until then sideways trading is expected.
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