A federal judge took the decision to refuse the plea of loss from the US Securities and Exchange Commission against Ripple, which is the crypto firm dealing in the XRP token. Following the circulation of the news, XRP’s value fell by 5%.
According to the District Judge, Analisa Torres, her ruling stemmed from the fact that the SEC was unable to come up with a clear position regarding their opinion of the law and exactly how it was broken.
Under the circumstances, this is definitely not the end for the SEC. As a matter of fact, the judge has postponed the trial date to April 2024, along with some other legal matters that require closer looking into. The agency has the option of appealing at a later date.
In July 2023, the judge decided that Ripple had broken federal securities legislation by selling XRP directly to institutional investors. However, the judge also mentioned the fact that Ripple had not made XRP accessible to retail customers via programmatic selling targeting exchanges. This factor, in the judge’s opinion, seems to complicate legal aspects.
After Judge Torres’ order in July, the SEC said it will file an interlocutory appeal and ask the court to halt further proceedings until the appeal is resolved.