The SEC vs Ripple tussle has witnessed several twists and turns and the latest developments seem to be confirming that. Court documents filed on 11 March revealed that the presiding judge over the highly-anticipated case Analisa Torres denied SEC’s motion to shoot down the Fair Notice defense.
The latest ruling comes after a previous judgment that ruled in favor of Ripple Lab. In early February, the court delivered a ruling in favor of unsealing two legal opinions. The decision boosted Ripple’s defense and argument that the SEC failed to notify the former of a possible violation of SEC laws.
In response, General counsel for Ripple Lab, Stuart Alderoty tweeted saying,
The latest court ruling ties in with the two legal opinions that demonstrated Ripple Lab’s efforts, to remain within the boundaries of U.S laws and, more importantly, to address any concerns vis-à-vis the classification of digital assets.
However soon after that, things took a new turn when separate court filings on the same day showed the court dismissing Ripple executives’ plea seeking to put an end to the SEC lawsuit filed against them.
Court Rulings denied Ripple’s twin motions against SEC
In a setback for the defendants, Torres, judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, has denied CEO Brad Garlinghouse’s and co-founder Chris Larsen’s twin motions to dismiss the lawsuit that was brought against them by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2020.
The motions were filed by the two top executives last April.
The court finds that the agency has “plausibly” alleged that Garlinghouse and Larsen carelessly disregarded the facts “that allegedly made XRP amount to the unregistered sale of securities.” The SEC has also “plausibly shown” that both of the defendants made domestic offers of the XRP token. Moreover, the court rejected the claim that their sales were predominately foreign.
Alderoty has previously commented on the decision to strike down the SEC’s motion, claiming that there’s a “serious question” whether the agency whether provided the company with fair notice. Interestingly Garlinghouse also took to Twitter to term the “fair notice” ruling as a “huge win” while making no comments on his failed motion to dismiss the lawsuit.