Ripple,SEC Suspend Appeals,Seek Resolution, XRP Up 0.2%

Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission have jointly filed a request to suspend their respective appeals as they pursue a negotiated resolution of their long-running case. This development comes after the two parties reached an agreement-in-principle, with Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse revealing last month that the SEC would be dropping its appeal. The filing submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit confirms that the SEC has indeed dropped the appeal it lodged in October, while Ripple seeks to drop its cross-appeal.

The document also clarifies that the agreement-in-principle between the two parties has not yet gained final approval from the SEC. The filing, signed by legal representatives for both sides, states that the parties require additional time to obtain Commission approval for this agreement-in-principle. If approved by the Commission, they will seek an indicative ruling from the district court. It is possible that final SEC approval may not come until Paul Atkins, a Trump nominee, assumes his role as chairman, although his swearing in could only be a matter of days away, having gained Senate confirmation on Wednesday.

SEC approval of the agreement would mark the final end of a legal dispute which began in December 2020, when the regulator filed a suit alleging that Ripple had raised $1.3 billion via the sale of unregistered securities since 2013. In July 2023, Judge Analisa Torres ruled largely in Ripple’s favor, determining that third-party sales of XRP on exchanges didn’t constitute the offering of unregistered securities. However, the SEC filed an appeal more than a year later, contesting that securities law was violated by Ripple’s direct offering of XRP on exchanges, and by personal sales of XRP by executives Brad Garlinghouse and Christian Larsen.

With this appeal now being dropped, the price of XRP could continue the upwards trend it began following the election of Donald Trump on November 5. Since that date, XRP has risen significantly, based largely on the expectation that a more pro-crypto administration would result in the end of the Ripple-SEC case. However, given the size of this gain, the end of the case may now already be priced in, with XRP up by only 0.2% in the past 24 hours despite today’s news.