Shortly after blockchain company Ripple filed its opposition to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) anticipated motion to file an interlocutory appeal in the prolonged legal standoff between the two, the court set a briefing schedule for the regulator’s request.
Specifically, Judge Analisa Torres has granted the SEC’s request for a motion for leave to file an early appeal, setting August 18 as its deadline, as well as September 1 for the defendants’ opposition and September 8 for the SEC’s reply (if any), according to the court document shared by defense attorney James K. Filan on August 17.
Request to request
As Filan said in simpler terms, this does not mean that the Judge has authorized an early appeal, only that she has allowed the SEC to request it. In other words, she has “granted the SEC’s request to REQUEST to file a motion to leave to file an interlocutory appeal,” as FOX Business journalist Eleanor Terret explained.
Furthermore, this also means that Judge Torres could still ultimately deny the securities regulator’s motion and explain why she’s denying it, and it could take another 3-6 months” for her ruling, as legal experts Bill Morgan and John E. Deaton confirmed on August 17.
As a reminder, Ripple’s legal team filed an opposition to the SEC’s anticipated motion for leave to file an interlocutory appeal, listing multiple reasons for its stance, including the wrongful application of the Howey facts and lack of clear legal question, as Finbold reported on August 17.
Commenting on the appeal possibility, Ripple’s chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty told Real Vision’s Ash Bennington that he and his defendants were “not afraid of an appeal,” as he believes “we would win on an appeal… but let’s get there on an ordinary course.”
Meanwhile, the XRP token that is at the center of the widely publicized court battle was at press time trading at the price of $0.507, down 14.15% on the day, declining 19.79% across the week, and losing 35.74% on its monthly chart, in line with the bearish sentiment on the general cryptocurrency market.
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