The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is appealing a federal judge’s ruling in a year-long legal battle against Ripple over its sale of XRP tokens.
As an SEC spokesperson said, this expands the debate over whether Ripple violated securities laws Coin platform“We believe the district court’s decision in the Ripple matter conflicts with decades of Supreme Court precedent and securities laws and look forward to litigating the case in the Second Circuit.”
In August, a federal judge in the Southern District of New York fined Ripple $125 million, despite the SEC’s request for a $2 billion fine. Part of the reason for the much lighter punishment stems from previous rulings. In 2023, Judge Analisa Torres ruled that while Ripple defrauded institutional investors by selling them unregistered securities in the form of XRP tokens, Ripple’s programmatic sales of XRP to retail exchanges no Unregistered securities.
The SEC filed a notice of appeal with the Second Circuit Court of Appeals on Wednesday. One day ago, Bitwise Asset Management Inc. filed with the SEC for an exchange-traded fund to invest directly in XRP, Burundi Report. XRP fell 11% after the SEC appealed.
Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse said in an article published on X that the actions of the SEC and its chairman Gary Gensler were unreasonable. Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty called the SEC’s appeal “disappointing, but not surprising.”
