[NEWS] SEC drops lawsuit against Ripple CEO Garlinghouse and others, XRP surges

On the 19th, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) dropped its lawsuit against Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and founder and chairman Chris Larsen.

This was revealed in documents filed by SEC lawyers in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In response, the price of XRP has soared by about 6% from the previous day.

CEO Garlinghouse said, "Chris and I have been the subject of unfounded allegations from politically motivated and dishonest regulators. Now that the SEC has pulled back the curtain on their absurd machinations, we look forward to a full closure."

Chairman Larsen also criticized the SEC's current strong crackdown on the cryptocurrency sector, saying, "The SEC is abusing its power and trying to drive cryptocurrency innovation offshore."

Ripple now has 90% of its business outside the U.S. due to the SEC's erroneous lawsuit. He also revealed that 90% of Ripple's users will be outside the U.S. in the third quarter of 2023.

This case is a lawsuit and trial over the securities nature of XRP. The SEC filed suit in December 2020, alleging that XRP should have been registered as a security since 2013 and that Ripple had committed false and fraudulent acts against investors.

However, in July of this year, a federal court judge ruled that Ripple's sales of XRP to institutional investors violated the federal securities laws, but that its sales to individual investors did not. The SEC appealed the ruling and sought an interlocutory appeal, but it was dismissed.

The SEC had initially planned to move the case to the trial court in April next year, but this dismissal means that this will no longer be possible. On the other hand, the SEC has stated that it will continue to pursue Ripple's direct sales of XRP to institutional investors, and will carefully consider whether to indict by November 9th.

The SEC is currently pursuing lawsuits against former Celsius Network CEO Alex Mashinsky and former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, and has also filed civil lawsuits against major cryptocurrency exchanges such as Binance and Coinbase.

Source:Announcement
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