The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was denied its bid to appeal by a federal judge in its lawsuit against Ripple Labs on Tuesday.
This was about the US District Judge Analisa Torres’ July decision that ruled that the sale of Ripple’s $XRP digital token on public exchanges complied with federal securities laws. According to the judge, the purchasers had no reasonable expectation of profit based on Ripple’s efforts.
The regulatory watchdog wanted the court to reconsider Torres’ findings about “programmatic” sales of $XRP and about “other distributions” of the token as a means of payment for services. According to the SEC, such an appeal would be important to a “large number” of lawsuits.
As per Tuesday’s ruling, the denial of SEC’s appeal was made in the light of the regulator’s failure to meet its burden under the law to show that there were controlling questions of law. The judge also found no “substantial ground for difference of opinion” about her findings.
Along with this decision, the next trial date in the Ripple case was also scheduled for 23 April 2024. The SEC is expected to appeal the overall case again then.
Back in September, when Ripple filed to oppose SEC’s request for an interlocutory appeal in the $XRP lawsuit case, its lawyers urged the judge to reject any of the regulatory watchdog’s requests to make an appeal or stay saying: “The SEC has not even attempted to meet the standard for a stay, even after the Individual Defendants identified that omission in their pre-motion letter. The Individual Defendants write separately to oppose the SEC’s request. Ripple joins that opposition.”
The lawsuit, which started in December 2020, is followed by many in the crypto industry for its significance over how the SEC views digital assets as securities, eventually giving it the power to regulate them. In this case, the regulator has accused Ripple of illegally raising more than $1.3billion in an unregistered securities offering by selling $XRP.
The SEC also has other lawsuits against the Binance and Coinbase platforms.
Following the recent denial of SEC’s appeal, the $XRP token has been rising in price due to the positive news for Ripple. It has been up by 5% in the last 24 hours, enjoying a trade in the green on its chart. At the time of press, the coin was changing hands for $0.5338.
In other news, Ripple’s Singapore arm secured full approval to operate as a digital payment token services provider in Singapore. It has been granted regulatory clarity via a licence by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), just four months after receiving in-principle approval from the regulator.
As the company struggles with regulatory issues in the West, it recently revealed that it does about 90 per cent of its business outside the US. Singapore, on the other hand, has been the company’s Asia Pacific headquarters for six years. Its CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, commented on the feat saying: “Singapore has developed into one of the leading fintech and digital asset hubs striking the balance between innovation, consumer protection and responsible growth.”
