Ripple CLO claims the company will not back down from any SEC-led appeal.
Ripple Labs' Chief Legal Officer (CLO), Stuart Alderoty, has confidently addressed concerns about a possible appeal from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to the pivotal Ripple judgment made earlier this month.
Alderoty's optimistic outlook rests on the belief that an appeal from the SEC could, ironically, cement Ripple Labs' partial win over the regulator.
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During a TechCrunch podcast on July 26th, Alderoty reaffirmed his stance that the XRP token isn't an investment contract and indicated Ripple Labs would not back down from any SEC-led court appeal.
We think the judge got that right, and we think that was a faithful application of the law, and I think a court of appeals will not only affirm that but maybe even amplify that to even a greater extent.
On July 13th, Judge Analisa Torres decreed that XRP wasn't a security when sold to the public on crypto exchanges. Although it could be treated as such when sold to institutional investors. The SEC, voicing its dissatisfaction with the ruling, hinted at an appeal against this split decision in its ongoing case against Terraform Labs founder, Do Kwon on July 21st.
The SEC lawyers disagreed with the judgment stating:
Respectfully, those portions of Ripple were wrongly decided, and this Court should not follow them. SEC staff is considering the various available avenues for further review and intends to recommend that the SEC seek such review.
The US securities regulator maintained that the retail sales of XRP should have been classified as securities.
According to Alderoty, if the SEC persists in categorizing crypto assets as securities, it risks losing subsequent cases where it tries to assert such claims. He posited:
Our case and the decision rendered by our judge <Torres> will provide comfort to other judges that the SEC is just misguided.
However, Alderoty cautioned that the crypto sector is far from having a firm regulatory environment. Ripple CLO criticized the SEC's regulation by enforcement strategy, attributing the US's lag in crypto legislation behind other jurisdictions to this approach.
We still need a rational, comprehensive and understandable regulatory framework for crypto in the US. Because of the SEC’s refusal to faithfully apply the law <…> the US has been visibly falling behind the rest of the world.
Ripple Labs remains steadfast in its legal face-off with the SEC. The future of this case could be instrumental in shaping the regulatory landscape for cryptocurrency in the US and around the globe.
