Ripple general counsel Stu Alderoty says there is a single legal question at the center of the charges the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed against the San Francisco payments company.
Earlier this week, the SEC officially filed a lawsuit alleging that XRP was an unregistered security upon its launch and remains a security to this day.
Alderoty questions why the SEC complaint – which dates back to 2013 – wasn’t filed for seven years.
He also says the SEC didn’t provide the whole story.
“There are no ‘fraud’ or ‘misrepresentation’ claims. There is one legal question: Did certain of Ripple’s distributions of XRP constitute an investment contract? We look forward to litigating that in Court and providing the industry the clarity it deserves.
As always, the SEC cherry-picked and truncated the facts, quotes, etc. Ex: no mention that throughout 2018, Ripple’s XRP sales represented only 0.095% to 0.43% of global XRP volume and in Q1 2019, those sales amounted to 0.22% of the overall trading volume.”
Ripple’s lawyer also says the SEC complaint cuts against other classifications made by the US government.
“In 2015, the US Government concluded XRP was a virtual currency. Last I checked, the SEC is still part of the US Government. Here’s the plus side –– the industry will finally get the clarity it deserves. Goodbye ‘Howey test,’ hello ‘Ripple test.'”
Both Alderoty and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse say the world will soon get to hear the company’s side of the story.
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