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NY Judge Slaps Down SEC, Ripple’s Second Request for an Indicative Ruling on Proposed $50M Settlement
A New York judge has rejected a joint request from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple Labs for her to approve a proposed settlement agreement that would slash Ripple’s civil penalty to $50 million and dissolve the permanent injunction against the firm.
It is the proposed removal of the permanent injunction, and not the $50 million civil penalty — discounted from the original $125 million imposed by the court last year — that appears to be the sticking point for District Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York (SDNY), who wrote in her Thursday ruling that a permanent injunction against further violations of federal securities laws was, as the SEC suggested at the time, “warranted because of the enormous sums of money Ripple made in violating the law and Ripple’s incentives to continue doing so.”
“Indeed, if the Court should not be concerned about Ripple violating the law, why do the parties want to eliminate the injunction that tells Ripple, ‘Follow the law’?,” Torres wrote. “When the Court imposed the injunction, it did so because it found a ‘reasonable probability’ that Ripple would continue violating federal securities laws. This has not changed, nor do the parties claim that it has.”
The request comes amid sweeping changes at the SEC following the election of U.S. President Donald Trump in January and the subsequent departure of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler. Under the SEC’s new leadership, the regulator has adopted a more crypto-friendly regulatory posture, creating a Crypto Task Force spearheaded by Commissioner Hester Peirce and dropping a host of investigations and litigation against crypto companies. However, as Torres pointed out in her ruling, most of those cases were dismissed by the SEC “before a court found a violation of federal securities laws.”
“Regardless of leadership changes, the SEC has avoided whipsawing between arguments in ongoing litigation in order to protect the agency’s credibility,” said Corey Frayer, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America. “In granting favors to crypto companies, SEC leadership has chosen to tarnish a 90 year reputation the agency carefully built.”
This is the SEC’s second request for an indicative ruling — essentially, a preview of what a lower court will do if a higher court sends the case back down to the lower court for a final decision — that Torres has rejected. In May, she slapped down the first such attempt, citing both jurisdictional and procedural flaws. Earlier this month, the parties tried again, filing a new, expanded request with the court arguing that “exceptional circumstances” warranted the modification of Torres’ final judgement.
Torres was completely unmoved by SEC and Ripple’s arguments, writing: “The Court respects the freedom of parties to amicably resolve their disputes. It is also true that the SEC, like any other law enforcement agency, has discretion to change course after an enforcement action is initiated. But the parties do not have the authority to agree not to be bound by a court’s final judgment that a party violated an Act of Congress in such a manner that a permanent injunction and a civil penalty were necessary to prevent that party from violating the law again. For that, the parties must show exceptional circumstances that outweigh the public interest or the administration of justice. They have not come close to doing so here.”
If the parties “genuinely wish to end this litigation today,” Torres wrote, they have two other choices: they can either withdraw their ongoing appeals in the case, or they can take an appeal.
“Neither option involves requiring this Court to absolve Ripple of its obligations under the law,” Torres said.
Bitcoin Treasury Corporation, a Canadian firm focused on bitcoin-related services, has wrapped up the first leg of its bitcoin buying campaign, adding 478.57 bitcoin (BTC) for CAD $70 million ($51 million) and boosting its total holdings to 771.37 BTC.
The accumulation works out to roughly 0.0000634 BTC per fully diluted share, the company said in a Friday press release. The Toronto-based firm plans to lend part of its BTC treasury to trading desks and other counterparties that need ready access to the cryptocurrency.
The approach mirrors that of numerous other companies adopting bitcoin as a treasury reserve asset.
Publicly-traded companies now hold a total of 841,715 BTC worth over $90 billion, according to Bitcointreasuries data, while private firms are estimated to hold 290,878 BTC worth over $31 billion.
The years-long legal battle between Ripple and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) appears to have finally come to an end, after Ripple Labs CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced Friday that the company plans to drop its cross-appeal in the case.
“Ripple is dropping our cross appeal, and the SEC is expected to drop their appeal, as they’ve previously said,” Garlinghouse wrote on X. “We’re closing this chapter once and for all, and focusing on what’s most important – building the Internet of Value. Lock in.”
XRP climbed a modest 1.4% on the news.
The decision comes just a day after U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York (SDNY) rejected a joint request from the SEC and Ripple to approve a proposed settlement agreement that would slash Ripple’s civil penalty to $50 million and dissolve the permanent injunction against the firm. It was the latter that appeared to be the sticking point for Torres, who argued:
“Indeed, if the Court should not be concerned about Ripple violating the law, why do the parties want to eliminate the injunction that tells Ripple, ‘Follow the law’?,” Torres wrote. “When the Court imposed the injunction, it did so because it found a ‘reasonable probability’ that Ripple would continue violating federal securities laws. This has not changed, nor do the parties claim that it has.”
The joint request was the second such request slapped down by Torres, who rejected an earlier attempt in May citing both jurisdictional and procedural flaws. With the court showing no signs of budging on the terms of the settlement, Ripple’s decision to withdraw its cross-appeal ends the case by accepting the initially-imposed civil penalty of $125 million and presumably leaving the permanent injunction against the firm in place.
A spokesperson for Ripple Labs did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
The SEC first sued Ripple in 2020 under then-Chair Jay Clayton, alleging that the company violated federal securities laws through its sales of XRP. After years of litigation, Torres eventually concluded in a 2023 ruling that the sales of XRP to retail traders on public exchanges did not constitute securities transactions, but found that XRP sales to institutional investors did, thus violating securities laws.
Bitvavo is the latest crypto exchange to receive a Markets in Crypto Assets License from the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) to operate across the 30 nations in the European Economic Area.
Crypto companies have been applying for the licenses since the regulatory regime came into force in December last year. MiCA, which came into force in 2023 harmonizes rules across the European Union’s bloc of 27 nations plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.
The Netherlands also awarded licenses to four exchanges in December last year, as the rules took effect. Other exchanges like OKX, Crypto.com and Bitpanda secured a MiCA license from Malta. Kraken was awarded a license on Thursday from Ireland, Coinbase was awarded a MiCA license from Luxembourg in June and Bybit was awarded an EU license from Austria in May.
«This license provides clarity, confidence and enables Bitvavo to fulfil its ambition: to become the leading digital asset trading platform in Europe,» said Mark Nuvelstijn, CEO and co-founder of Bitvavo, in a statement.
Bitvavo, which is the largest player globally in the EUR spot market, already held registrations in France, Austria, Italy and Spain, in addition to the Netherlands, the company’s release said.
Bitcoin Treasury Corp Boosts Holdings to 771 BTC, Plans Lending After $51M Buy
Ripple to Drop Cross-Appeal Against SEC, Ending Years-Long Legal Battle With SEC
Bitvavo Secures a MiCA License From the Netherlands
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