In court documents filed late Monday, Ripple Labs filed a rebuttal to pressure from the Securities and Exchange Commission to force the company to pay nearly $2 billion in fines.
This comes after the SEC said last month that Ripple would have to pay nearly $2 billion in fines for selling XRP to institutional investors. But Ripple said in its appeal that the figure should be closer to $10 million.
“Our opposition to the SEC’s request for a $2 billion fine for existing institutional sales is now public,” said Stuart Alderoty, Ripple’s chief legal officer. post On Monday “If there are no allegations (or findings) of recklessness or fraud, and Ripple wins on the important issues, the SEC’s request is just more evidence of the ongoing threat to all cryptocurrencies in the United States.”
“We are confident the judge will take a fair approach to this final phase of relief,” Alderoty added.
long road
The SEC and Ripple have been fighting in court for years after the SEC accused Ripple of raising $1.3 billion through the sale of XRP, an unregistered security. Last year, New York Judge Analisa Torres rule Some of Ripple’s XRP sales, called programmatic, did not violate securities laws due to a blind bidding process. However, she determined that selling tokens directly to institutional investors is a security.
The SEC said Ripple made billions of dollars selling institutional XRP, and in a court filing last month it said Ripple “still holds the largest amount of XRP and continues to sell it unregistered to institutional buyers.” claimed.
Ripple said it changed the way it sells XRP following a court ruling last year.
“Ripple has publicly acknowledged that ruling and is doing so again today, changing the way it sells XRP and changing its contracts to avoid the problems identified by this court,” the company said in a filing Monday.
The SEC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
last monthIn its proposed final judgment, the SEC said it wanted Ripple Labs to pay nearly $2 billion, including $876 million in clawbacks, $198 million in prejudgment interest, and $876 million in civil penalties. The agency asked Judge Torres to assess the “seriousness” of the company’s misconduct.
The SEC failed to show that the refund was justified and also said its interest in prejudgment should be abandoned, Ripple argued on Monday. Civil fines cannot exceed $10 million, the company added.
“Ripple’s conduct was not serious,” the company said in the filing. “The institutional sales took place over eight years to 41 ‘sophisticated individuals and entities.’ The entities were fully informed about the transactions they were engaging in and decided to do so for their own financial benefit. Next There is no such claim that Ripple deceived or misled them.”
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