Following the court case victory by Ripple against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in which Judge Analisa Torres declared that retail sales of XRP did not constitute securities sales, the parties have submitted to her an agreed-upon schedule for settlement discussions.
Indeed, the blockchain company has agreed to the securities regulator’s proposed schedule of 90 days to conduct remedies-related discovery, as long as it limits this discovery to the period before the lawsuit, according to the court documents shared by defense attorney James K. Filan in an X post on November 9.
Specifically, the settlements phase, which aims to put an end to the years-long legal standoff that, according to Ripple’s CEO, has cost his company over $100 million in legal expenses, involves an exchange of information that would determine the amount that the blockchain company would have to pay.
Deciding on damages
As a reminder, after the court case officially ended, the one thing left to resolve was the amount of damages Ripple would have to pay, considering that the Judge ruled that the sales of XRP to institutional investors (unlike retail buyers) were, in fact, securities sales.
Notably, the SEC seeks the full amount of the institutional XRP sales of $770 million, but Ripple wants to “drastically reduce” the fine. Therefore, how much the blockchain company would actually pay will depend on the outcome of the settlement negotiations and the final court decision.
Earlier, lawyer John E. Deaton shared his opinion that if the settlement ends with Ripple paying $20 million or less, “it would be a 99.9% legal victory” for it, while another legal expert, Jeremy Hogan, elaborated that the “fair” amount needed to include net profits, not gross, from the sales.
In the meantime, the XRP token that was the focus of the long-running courtroom battle was at press time trading at $0.65, down 6.58% on the day but still holding onto the 8.87% gain across the previous week and the more significant advance of 34.18% in the last month, as per data on November 10.
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