The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally appealed the ruling in its case against Ripple over XRP. SEC submitted Form C to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Post the news, the market value of XRP faced a slight dip of 0.34%.
In the filing, the SEC challenges the court’s conclusion that Ripple’s XRP sales on digital asset platforms were not unregistered securities, and the decision that personal sales by Garlinghouse and Larsen were not in violation of securities laws. The SEC also disputes the ruling that Ripple’s non-cash XRP distributions, offered in exchange for services, did not violate the Securities Act of 1933.
However, the official filing has also stirred a lot of questions as the SEC’s Form C is dated October 16 while the court’s file stamp on the document is October 17, raising doubts if SEC missed the deadline for appealing the ruling deadline.
A retired securities lawyer and X user, Marc Fagel pointed out the possibility of a docketing time lag, as he said, “I’m not an appellate guy, but is it possible there is a docketing time lag? The filing shows the SEC pulled the district court docket early Wednesday morning; kind of a weird thing to do if they weren’t planning to file it Wednesday.”
Courtesy: Marc Fagel X account
Chief Legal Officer of Ripple, Stuart Alderoty took to X to respond to the filing, and declared Ripple will file for a Form C in the next week.
No surprises here — once again it’s been made clear. The Court’s ruling that “XRP is not a security” is NOT being appealed. That decision stands as the law of the land.
Stay tuned for Ripple’s Form C to be filed next week.
— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) October 18, 2024
As for $XRP’s performance, the crypto saw a slight dip of 0.34% in the past day, and is currently trading at 0.5457, its volume, however has gone up by 33.75% and is $1.44B, at the time of writing.
The second filing comes at the heels of SEC’s initial lawsuit accusing Ripple and its leaders of violating sections of the Securities Act of 1933 by offering and selling XRP without the necessary registration.
The appeal follows a district court ruling delivered by Judge Analisa Torres that gave a split decision. In July 2023, Ripple registered a partial victory in a landmark case when the court found that XRP sales on crypto trading platforms were not considered securities. However, the court did also claim that Ripple selling XRP to institutional investors were unregistered securities. The judgment also added that personal XRP sales by Garlinghouse and Larsen did not constitute violations.
In August, a judgment ordering Ripple to pay $125,035,150 in civil penalties was issued and the company was barred from further breaches of the Securities Act.
