- Attorney blasts the SEC for failing to give credible evidence to back its claims.
- XRP price crashes amid disagreement.
The Ripple-SEC lawsuit will go on for as long as we can imagine after the US-based company spoke against the SEC in yesterday’s pretrial conference. Ripple labs disclosed that the SEC didn’t give clarity as to XRP being a security. In other words, there is no presence of a fair notice from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Furthermore, in defense of Ripple labs, the company’s attorneys blasted the commission for handling XRP differently. According to them, the Ripple-SEC lawsuit took longer than expected before being initiated, adding that they shouldn’t have waited for several years before filing the case. The lawsuit was filed against CEO and Chairman, Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen respectively in December 2020.
Ripple-SEC lawsuit: Ripple Attorney blasts the SEC
Andrew Ceresney, an attorney supporting Ripple labs at yesterday’s conference, was quick to criticize the SEC’s actions. He said that the SEC has no evidence to justify its Ripple’s security claims, given that it took eight years for a case to be brought up. He added, “in 2015, FinCEN and the Department of Justice called Ripple a cryptocurrency, while giving their verdict that both Ether and Bitcoin are also non-securities.”
The Ripple-SEC lawsuit asserts that Ripple sold XRPs illegally — violating sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the U.S. Securities Act, 1933, which explains the illicit offer and sale of securities. The SEC accused Brad and Chris of making profits from the sale of XRPs and deemed the transactions as unregistered forms of security offerings.
However, Andrew countered the SEC claims, stating that an exchange approached the SEC of its plans to list XRP in 2019, and the SEC didn’t notify the exchange that XRP is seen as a security. Due to the lack of information, the exchange went about with their business as they listed XRP.
XRP price drops following lawsuit
The Ripple-SEC lawsuit caused a significant loss for XRP in December. The cryptocurrency’s price fell from $0.60 to $0.25, which corresponds to a 60 percent decrease prompting many exchanges to delist them. As of this writing, Ripple (XRP) is currently trading at $0.43 (21 percent loss) following yesterday’s pretrial conference.
