The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has appealed a pre-existing $125m court judgment against Ripple Labs.
The SEC deems that the figure is not enough of a financial penalty to be levied against the crypto company and is now pursuing further damages.
The federal regulator had been seeking around $2 billion dollars to settle the allegations that the company had defrauded institutional crypto investors.
SEC appeals court judgment on Ripple Labs
The saga of the crypto token XRP began hitting the courthouse floor in 2023. Judge Analisa Torres declared the token was a part of Ripple’s $728.9 million sales to institutional investors but not to retail exchanges.
A key point in the ruling from the judge where she said, “An Institutional Buyer knowingly purchased XRP directly from Ripple pursuant to a contract, but the economic reality is that a Programmatic Buyer stood in the same shoes as a secondary market purchaser who did not know to whom or what it was paying its money.”
When the fines became public, Due reported that Ripple Lab’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Stuart Alderoty, took to social media to vent his frustrations.
“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.
Earlier this year, in the Southern District of New York, Ripple was fined $125m for defrauding investors, but the SEC has taken the legal appeals process forward, stating that the financial penalty was not sufficient.
This has now progressed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, with a critical spokesperson for the SEC saying to CoinDesk, “We believe that the district court decision in the Ripple matter conflicts with decades of Supreme Court precedent and securities laws and look forward to making our case to the Second Circuit.”
Alderoty again used social media to convey his disappointment in light of the SEC seeking further financial damages from Ripple.
(1) The SEC's decision to appeal is disappointing, but not surprising. This just prolongs what's already a complete embarrassment for the agency. The Court already rejected the SEC’s suggestion that Ripple acted recklessly, and there were no allegations of fraud and, of course,… https://t.co/PQozMMtthf
— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) October 2, 2024
Saying, “(1) The SEC’s decision to appeal is disappointing, but not surprising. This just prolongs what’s already a complete embarrassment for the agency. The Court already rejected the SEC’s suggestion that Ripple acted recklessly, and there were no allegations of fraud and, of course, there were no victims or losses.”
Image: Pexels.
