Ripple lawyers say SEC claims are unfounded

Lawyers representing Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen filed in court additional notices in support of the motion to dismiss the case initiated by the SEC. The information was provided by attorney James Filan.

#XRPCommunity #SECGov v. #Ripple #XRP Individual Defendants file letter and Peirce & Roisman statement as supporting Motions to Dismiss amid “significant regulatory uncertainty regarding when digital assets may be classified as securities by the SEC.”https://t.co/I0tDYjpA6B

— James K. Filan 🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@FilanLaw) July 19, 2021

The filing mentions the Blotics case, operator of the cryptocurrency site Coinschedule, and a statement from SEC commissioners Hester Peirce and Elad Roisman dated July 14, 2021.

In their view, the regulator has not explained which digital assets promoted by Coinschedule are securities.

[This] underscores our reluctance to provide further guidance on determining whether a token is being sold in a securities offering or which tokens are securities,” the commissioners said.

Ripple’s lawyers said the SEC’s position “confirms substantial regulatory uncertainty” regarding the classification of digital assets.

The commission also failed to prove that the defendants knew or ignored the requirements to register XRP tokens as securities, according to the motions. The lawyers asked the court to deem the SEC’s claims legally unfounded.

Earlier the court rejected the regulator’s challenge to the deposition of former SEC Director of the Division of Corporate Finance, William Hinman. In 2018 he declined to classify Ethereum as a security, and now must explain the principles behind that decision.

On July 16, Filan said that the former agency employee’s testimony in court had been postponed until July 27.

#XRPCommunity #SEC_News v. #Ripple #XRP Hinman deposition postponed to July 27, 2021. The parties have made “substantial progress in narrowing and resolving the privilege issues” and will continue to confer. Parties will report to Court on their progress on Monday by 5 p.m. pic.twitter.com/orlpXGnkTM

— James K. Filan 🇺🇸🇮🇪 (@FilanLaw) July 16, 2021

As reported in April 2021 the court granted Ripple’s motion regarding access to SEC documents disclosing its “interpretation and views” on Bitcoin and Ethereum.

On June 15 the regulator obtained a 60-day extension of the deadline for exchanging evidence in the case with the fintech company.

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