By
Chimamanda U. Martha
April 18th, 2024
Ripple Labs get relief in one of the latest lawsuits from the District Court of California, while the company doubles-down on its expansion plans in Asia and the Middle East.
It seems like there is absolutely no stop to the number of lawsuits filed against San Francisco-based blockchain startup Ripple Labs. The company has been facing several lawsuits for its XRP tokens to be considered as securities, however, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has outrightly denied the claims several times.
On August 11, the US Northern District of California court rejected the remand application for a lawsuit by XRP investor Ryan Coffey on Ripple Labs three months back in May 2018. Coffey sought damages in the form of financial losses while accusing Ripple and its CEO of manipulating the price of XRP tokens through sensational advertising and media promotion of the digital token while “obscuring the role of the security.”
The plaintiff also argued that XRP products are not completely decentralized while also accusing the blockchain startup of violating the federal securities laws through the sale of XRP tokens. However, the California district court ruled its decision in favor of Ripple Labs saying:
“Having read the papers filed by the parties and carefully considered their arguments and the relevant legal authority, and good cause appearing, the court hereby DENIES plaintiff’s motion.”
However, Ripple is not the only company which has been facing the heat of lawsuits. Even giants like Apple have 20 times more lawsuits in comparison to Ripple pending three. Twitter user @lanbins recently responded to a post questioning about three pending lawsuits on Ripple Labs saying:
“Nice to know but apple is I like 60 . . . lawsuits it just turned $1T it’s normal in big business.”
Ripple’s Expansion in Europe, Asia and the Middle East
Ripple’s Head of Banking Marjan Delatinne recently confirmed that the company is in talks with several banks in Germany. This year, Ripple has been aggressively pursuing partnerships with global banking institutions. Ripple’s xCurrent and xRapid solutions, for low-cost instant fund transfers across the globe, are currently used by more than 100 banking institutions.
Delatinne was questioned about the company’s growing presence around the globe in countries like Japan, U.S., other parts of Europe, but was having an absence in Germany’s emerging blockchain market. To this, he replied:
“We actually are in talks with many of [German] banks too.”
Riesebank, the third largest bank in Germany by asset size is the only German bank in partnership with Ripple.
Additionally, Ripple further expands its operations in Asia and the Middle East as it partners with more banks in the region. Navin Gupta, the Managing Director of Ripple in India, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa said during a recent interview to TechCircle that he is confident that Ripple’s solutions will be replacing the existing SWIFT systems soon.
Mr. Gupta is quite bullish on India’s market as he said that the company expects nearly 1 billion people in the country to get banked in the next five years. Ripple’s partnerships with the top three banks in India would straight away give them 80% share in the country’s financial banking sector.
Later, he also disclosed the company’s expansion plans in the Middle East while collaborating with some of the biggest banks in the region. In addition to the expansion plans, Ripple has also been working closely on the regulatory aspects.
“We are going around the world making sure that for the next 1,000 customers that we want to bring on which we think we can do in the next two years that regulation is not going to be an issue,” said Asheesh Birla, senior vice president of product at Ripple.