SEC Hasn't Met Requirements to Argue for an Appeal, Ripple Says

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) hasn't made enough of a case to warrant an appeals court intervention in its ongoing legal fight with Ripple, the crypto company argued in a new filing Friday.

The SEC is seeking a federal judge's approval to appeal her ruling finding that Ripple's programmatic sales of XRP did not violate securities law. If Judge Analisa Torres, of the Southern District of New York, signs off on the bid, the SEC will need to convince the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to take up the case. In its filing Friday, Ripple argued that there are no controlling law questions and that an appeal wouldn't lead to a faster resolution of the overall case.

Ripple just filed its opposition to the SEC’s request for an interlocutory (interim) appeal. Worth a read IMO, especially the footnotes 😁. Fn. 5 is one of my personal favorites. https://t.co/E6ZSbShPwy

— Stuart Alderoty (@s_alderoty) September 1, 2023

July's ruling did not "present a controlling question of law," and neither did the SEC's motion for an appeal, Ripple said in Friday's filing, which added that the regulator hasn't proven that different judges might disagree with the ruling, or that an appeal would lead to a faster end for the court case – all of which are requirements for the judge to approve an appeal, according to the filing.

Judge Torres found in July that while Ripple violated federal securities laws in selling XRP to institutional investors, it had not done the same in making XRP available to retail investors by putting it on exchanges.

A different judge in the same court, Judge Jed Rakoff, disagreed with Judge Torres' assessment in his own ruling in the SEC's case against Terraform Labs, a point the regulator brought up when it filed the substantive part of its appeal on August 18.

In Friday's filing, Ripple said the factual bases underlying each case were different, leading to the different rulings.

"This Court’s summary-judgment ruling relied on record evidence that Ripple made no 'promises or offers' to purchasers in Programmatic Sales," the filing said. "Terraform, by contrast, accepted the SEC’s allegations that Terraform and its founder promised all purchasers – those who bought directly from Terraform or from some other source – 'rates of returns of 19-20% on the coin owners’ initial investment.'"

The SEC has until September 8 to respond to today's filing.