Ripple’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, has announced that the company is taking action in response to a recent court filing by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In a motion filed on March 25th, the SEC requested that the US District Court for the Southern District of New York order Ripple to pay a total of approximately $1.95 billion. This includes $876,308,712 in disgorgement, $198,150,940 in prejudgment interest, and $876,308,712 in civil penalties.
The motion is in relation to a lawsuit that the SEC initially filed against Ripple in late 2020, accusing the company of selling the XRP crypto asset as an unregistered security. While last summer, US District Judge Analisa Torres ruled that the automated, open-market sales of XRP did not constitute security offerings, she did find that institutional sales of the token violated securities law.
In its recent motion, the SEC alleges that Ripple has been violating securities laws for a number of years. The SEC argues that the court should impose injunctive relief, disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and penalties on Ripple due to its illegal fundraising activities.
Alderoty took to social media platform X to address the situation, stating that Ripple will respond to the SEC’s motion within a week. He also clarified that there will be no final pretrial conference on April 16th, as the SEC has already dropped charges against Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse and executive chairman Chris Larsen.
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