The past 24 hours have been filled with breaking news as concerns the ongoing lawsuit between Ripple Labs Inc and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). One of the key pieces of news that broke is that the market regulator planned to file an appeal based on its interlocutory request, an appeal that Ripple General Counsel Stuart Alderoty says the company will be responding to in the coming week.
According to Alderoty, the SEC does not currently have the "right" to file an appeal to the XRP ruling, which currently posits that the digital currency is not in itself a security or investment contract. Alderoty highlights how much the SEC needs approval in order to be able to file the appeal that Chairman Gary Gensler hinted would be filed earlier.
The planned appeal, if granted, will throw a very significant wrench into the Ripple v. SEC case, as it will place the ruling from Judge Analisa Torres on a free path with dual uncertainty. While many legal experts following the case have predicted what might come out of such an appeal, the reality is that there is a fair chance the verdict could be upturned in the long term.
Precedent not yet set
The ruling from Judge Torres ideally favored both the SEC and Ripple Labs, as institutional sales of XRP were labeled investment contracts, while only secondary sales on exchanges were designated as nonsecurities.
The part that favored the blockchain payments company will form a major precedent if allowed to stand and will serve as a basis for other top digital currencies like Cardano (ADA), Solana (SOL) and Filecoin (FIL), already labeled by the SEC as securities, to defend themselves.
With rekindled interest in the case, the community will keep tabs on the jury trial, which will be kickstarted by the second quarter of next year, as scheduled by Judge Torres.