Yet another two parties are attempting to weigh in on the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) lawsuit against Ripple.
Top crypto exchange Coinbase and the crypto lobbying group the Blockchain Association are both seeking the court’s permission to file legal documents known as amicus briefs in the Ripple case, according to files shared by digital asset legal website CryptoLaw.
Coinbase is specifically seeking to back up Ripple’s fair-notice defense, in which the San Francisco payments firm argues that the regulator failed to provide “fair notice” that it was violating the law.
Explain the exchange’s lawyers,
“Coinbase has formally petitioned the SEC to engage in rulemaking for the US digital asset industry so that market participants can have a better idea of what to expect in the future and avoid losses such as those that occurred in this matter. In the absence of a regulatory framework governing digital assets, Coinbase believes that parties like Ripple must be permitted to pursue fair notice defenses in matters where they are facing surprise enforcement actions like this one.”
Kristin Smith, executive director of Blockchain Association, says the SEC’s interpretation of securities laws is “the single greatest threat to the future of this rapidly growing industry.”
“By erratically applying these outdated standards to a modern and innovative technology, the SEC continues its ‘regulation by enforcement’ pattern, punishing crypto companies with little justification or warning.
This is exactly the case with Ripple, which the SEC targeted nearly two years ago in an enforcement action alleging that the crypto company had failed to register a digital token as a security. The SEC must follow the law. They cannot impose their draconian view on the entire crypto ecosystem through an enforcement action.”
Last week, U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Phillip Goldstein, a managing member at the investment advisory firm Bulldog Investors, and the Investor Choice Advocates Network (ICAN), could both submit amicus briefs in support of Ripple.
ICAN bills itself as “a nonprofit public interest law firm representing parties who cannot afford counsel in precedent-setting Securities and Exchange Commission matters impacting barriers to entry to capital markets.”
Torres also approved a similar request from a Bitcoin payment app on the XRP Ledger called SpendTheBits.
Earlier in October, the judge ruled that TapJets, which bills itself as the Uber of private jet chartering, and remittance company I-Remit could also submit amicus briefs in support of Ripple Labs.
The SEC sued Ripple in late 2020 under allegations that it issued XRP as an unregistered security.
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