Stuart Adroitti says Ripple is close to wrapping up SEC lawsuit.

Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty expressed optimism that the company will soon end its lawsuit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He made the comments shortly after the SEC publicly filed its response and supporting documents to its amended opinion letter. According to Alderoty, the SEC’s response letter brings Ripple one step closer to ending the litigation. At the same time, Alderoty acknowledged that it is unfortunate that while Ripple is now coming to the end of its SEC lawsuit, other cryptocurrency businesses are just beginning their legal battles against regulators.

Years of legal battles are coming to an end
For those hearing about this for the first time, the SEC's lawsuit against Ripple began in December 2020, when the regulator accused the payment company of violating US securities laws by selling and offering XRP without registration. The legal dispute has had a particularly severe impact on Ripple's business and its cryptocurrency XRP in the United States. While Ripple changed its business strategy to focus primarily on non-U.S. customers, several trading platforms including Coinbase and Kraken delisted XRP in the United States. Interestingly, after Judge Analisa Torres declared that XRP programmatic sales were not investment contracts, the exchanges reversed their stance and relisted the coin.

The lawsuit has been going on for nearly three and a half years and is still ongoing. Nonetheless, the SEC’s final response brings Ripple one step closer to ending its years-long legal battle. Following the SEC’s response, Judge Torres will schedule a date for issuing a final ruling. While the ruling could be announced at any time, renowned crypto expert Ashley Prosper expects it to be between July and September. While Ripple has all but ended its battle, other crypto-related businesses, including Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken, are just beginning their own battles. The SEC also issued Wells Notices against Ethereum and Robinhood, indicating that enforcement actions are coming.

Ripple CLO criticized the SEC’s response. He accused the regulator of not applying the law faithfully in an effort to deceive the judge. Nonetheless, Ripple CLO expects the judge to be fair and equitable in determining the relief.

Is the SEC taking indirect action against other international financial institutions?
In a follow-up tweet, Alderoty pointed out that the SEC has ignored other international financial regulators in its recent filing. According to Ripple CLO, the SEC likened the cryptocurrency licenses issued by these international regulators to being nothing more than fishing licenses. He attached an excerpt from the SEC's response letter, showing that the SEC indirectly described this.

“This argument (that Ripple uses licenses it has obtained in other jurisdictions to support its claim that it does not intend to violate U.S. securities laws in the future) is tantamount to saying that a New York restaurant does not need to obtain a hotel license because it obtained a fishing license in California,” the SEC said in its response.

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