Recent court documents reveal that Ripple lawyers expect the SEC vs Ripple lawsuit to conclude somewhere between August 26, 2022 and November 18, 2022. Jeremy Hogan, an attorney who has closely covered and reported on the case states in a recent tweet “When will Ripple V. SEC end? Ripple thinks it will end sometime between August 26 and Nov 18th. In its pending class action, Ripple agreed to move the case start back to November 18th in belief that the SEC case will be finished before then.” He then added “Of course, it can settle ANYTIME.” He also cited the court document in the same tweet.
SEC vs Ripple (XRP) and the Class Action Lawsuit
The letter cited above was filed on February 23rd and it shows the originally planned start date of a separate class action lawsuit that was scheduled for August 26th, however both the SEC and Ripple have agreed to allow that case to begin on November 18, 2022 instead.
The document filed by Suzanne E. Nero, attorney at King & Spalding LLP states the following: “Due to the overlap of factual and legal issues between this case and the SEC Action, the Parties agree that there are efficiencies in having certain aspects of the SEC Action precede certain deadlines in this action. Doing so will reduce the burden on the Parties, streamline discovery in this case, and potentially reduce the burden on the Court by narrowing the issues in dispute”.
Jeremy Hogan, who had previously predicted a September conclusion to the case before these recent developments feels these new developments only strengthen his convictions. He stated “It makes me feel more confident in my September summary judgment prediction. I think Ripple thinks it wins the SEC case in Sept/Oct and then this class action goes away due to ‘collateral estoppel.’ Collateral Estoppel is a law that prevents defendants from being tried for the same issue more than once.
SEC has ‘hard argument’ to make according to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse
In a recent interview on Fox Business, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse stated that the SEC may have a ‘hard argument‘ to make in its lawsuit against Ripple and the XRP token. He added “The irony there is like we were in the SEC’s office. I met with Chairman Clayton. I was meeting with commissioners. No one ever once said, ‘Hey we think XRP is a security.’ They looked backward and say, ‘Now we think it’s all security.’ That’s a hard argument.” Garlinghouse also provided an update on the status of the lawsuit and hopes for some key decisions from the court to be made in the near future.
