By
Steve Muchoki
April 26th, 2024
Judge Torres is doing all she can to leave no stone unturned in the lawsuit that has spanned close to 2 years now.
The ongoing legal brawl between blockchain payments firm Ripple Labs Inc and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is taking its final turns as US Federal Judge, Analisa Torres has granted a number of supporters of both organizations to file Amicus Briefs.
An Amicus Brief is a piece of information that is offered to a court by parties not named in a legal case. The information, expertise, or insight that they provide typically has a bearing on the issues in the case. Judge Torres granted 9 Ripple supporters permission to file their Amicus Briefs while she granted 2 to the regulator.
Some of the firms that have received permission to file Amicus Briefs on behalf of Ripple include Reaper Financial, I-CAN, Cryptillian, Spend-the-Bits, Valhil, Cryptillian Payment Systems, VeriDAO, Paradigm, and Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ: COIN) amongst others. Coinbase has already filed its own Amicus Brief highlighting the timeline in which the SEC launched its lawsuit as being unfair.
“Given the absence of SEC rulemaking for the cryptocurrency industry, the question of whether the SEC has given fair notice before bringing an enforcement action against sales of one of the thousands of unique digital assets will often be highly fact-intensive, which makes it particularly ill-suited for adjudication on summary judgment,” Coinbase said in its argument in support of Ripple.
Over the coming days, the other firms are bound to release their own Amicus Briefs to back the company. The SEC supporters include InvestReady (Accredify) and the New Sports Economy Institute (NSEI) with the former highlighting that the blockchain payments firm actually sold XRP as securities.
Judge Torres is doing all she can to leave no stone unturned in the lawsuit that has spanned close to 2 years now. Both the SEC and Ripple have asked for snap judgment and with this phase of Amicus Briefs billed to end soon, we may be nearing the end of the case.
Ripple vs SEC Lawsuit: Setting Precedents in the Industry
The outcome of the Ripple vs SEC case will be a major determinant in future litigations involving securities in the United States. Ripple has reiterated that one of the reasons it chose to fight the SEC is so that it can create an avenue for other industry participants to trail the same path, using its strategies and dedication.
Chief Executive Officer, Brad Garlinghouse said at a time that the company’s estimated litigation cost is worth $100 million and he argued that the SEC’s style of cracking down on companies is because they have no financial capacity to defend themselves.
The industry stakeholders have implored the SEC several times to create a clear regulatory guideline for the industry. The turnout of this current lawsuit will determine if the response to this request will be fast-tracked or not.
