Judge ends Ripple, SEC lawsuit with $125 million fine, XRP surges 18%

The court has levied a $125 million fine on Ripple in the lawsuit filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ending the four-year-long dispute.

XRP’s price leaped 18% in minutes after the news broke and was trading at $0.61 as of press time, based on CryptoSlate data.

District Judge Analisa Torres from the District Court of the Southern District of New York partially rejected the SEC’s motion for remedies, which demanded over $2 billion from Ripple as compensation for allegedly selling XRP as an unregistered security.

According to the filing:

“The Court shall enter a final judgment enjoining Ripple from further violations of the securities laws and imposing a civil penalty of $125,035,150.”

The ruling comes after the court granted a partial summary judgment to both parties in July 2023. According to the filings, the court found that Ripple’s institutional sales of XRP constituted investment contracts and, therefore, violated securities laws.

However, the court also ruled that Ripple’s programmatic sales and other distributions of XRP did not meet the criteria for investment contracts under the Supreme Court’s Howey test and, therefore, did not constitute securities sales.

Notably, the court analyzed the XRP offerings conducted by Ripple and found out that only 1,278 transactions violated Section 5 of the Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act”), 15 U.S.C. §77e(a),(c). The SEC suggested in its filing that each of Ripple’s “1,700 relevant contracts” constitutes a separate violation, reads the document.

This is a developing story and will be updated as new information is gathered.

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