Ripple Labs, a technology and cryptocurrency company, must pay the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) a presumed $2 billion in fines.
The news comes from Ripple Lab’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Stuart Alderoty, who took to social media to post about the impending action from the SEC:
As you will see when the SEC’s brief is made public tomorrow, they ask the Judge for $2B in fines and penalties. 1/4 https://t.co/HM8dBbn7lp
— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) March 25, 2024
Ripple CFO on social media
The CFO of Ripple Labs would continue his comments on the proposed financial charges levied at the crypto giant in a four-post thread on X:
“Our response will be filed next month, but as we all have seen time and again, this is a regulator that trades in statements that are false, mischaracterized and designed to mislead. They stayed true to form here.”
Ripple Labs notched a landmark win in the battle with the SEC in July last year when Manhattan U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled that sales of the cryptocurrency XRP were not in breach of federal securities law on public exchanges.
“Rather than faithfully apply the law, the SEC remains bent on wanting to punish and intimidate Ripple – and the industry at large,” said Alderoty in his third post in the social media thread.
It was not all rosy for the technology giant. Judge Torres maintained that the company had violated federal securities law by selling XRP directly to high-profile investors. A trial date would be set to assess the part that senior Ripple Labs executives played in the cryptocurrency’s sales.
Ripple’s CFO would conclude the post on X by saying, “We trust the Court will approach the remedies phase fairly. 4/4.”
The SEC is engaged in lawsuits with other crypto companies, such as Coinbase and Binance, on similar topics. The main topic of legal conversation is the title “securities,” which the SEC argues does not cover these digital assets and their points of origin.
Many insiders are hoping for reform in cryptocurrency to state precisely what is required to placate the attack dogs of the regulators embroiled in legal action over the past few years.
