Court Grants SEC Leave to Appeal Ripple Case

Judge Analisa Torres granted the SEC’s request for leave to file an interlocutory appeal in the Ripple case, according to Cointelegraph.

The decision was made just hours after Ripple opposed a potential motion. The firm’s lawyers saw no sufficient grounds to overturn the ruling.

The regulator must file the appeal by August 18. In turn, Ripple will also be able to file a counter-complaint.

Before the ruling, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse wrote that the Commission is “wrong in fact and in law.”

"The request for an appeal, even if granted, does not change the fact that XRP is not a security. This is not debatable or for the court. But the SEC continues to assert that Chris Larsen and I acted recklessly. This is complete nonsense," he said.

In his view, appealing the ruling on retail sales would only further bolster Judge Torres’s decision.

SEC and Ripple have been involved in a court battle since 2020. The Commission charged the company with an unregistered sale of securities in the form of XRP totaling $1.3 billion. The defendants in the suit were Garlinghouse and Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen.

In July 2023, the Southern District of New York ruled that Ripple’s programmatic sales and other distributions of XRP did not constitute an offer or sale of investment contracts. After this, the SEC filed an appeal.

As noted earlier, former Department of Justice attorney John Reed Stark said that Judge Torres’s ruling in the Ripple case was ‘basically on shaky ground.’ In his view, the SEC has a strong chance of appealing it successfully in higher courts.