Following Ripple’s ultimate victory in the lawsuit against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), in which the regulator sued the blockchain company over the sale of the XRP token, legal experts have shared what comes next.
Specifically, lawyer Jeremy Hogan said that “‘for all intents and purposes,’ the Ripple v. SEC case is over,” and the only thing left is the important hearings to decide on a judgment of up to $770 million, as he explained in an X thread published on October 21.
Trial out of the question
Moreover, Hogan stressed that the SEC had dismissed the rest of the case and no “new or surprising” facts would be coming out, which means that a trial in 2024 is out of the question – only a final judgment by the court, which will come out “(probably) sometime next year.”
However, the legal expert highlighted that one possibility was that the case could settle at any time before the court renders the final judgment. On the other hand, he argued that both the SEC and Ripple could file appeals if that does not happen, calculating the agency’s chances of winning the appeal:
On the off chance that “the SEC appeal next year and the Appellate court sides with it in 2025,” Hogan believes that the Appellate court would have to send the case back down to the trial Judge for FURTHER judicial findings and determinations.”
In terms of “other distributions” of XRP, he pointed out that “the Judge did not make findings as to the 2nd & 3rd prongs of Howey. ONLY the trial judge can do that. What would the Judge rule? Who knows. But you’d have to think there’s a CHANCE she would rule for Ripple.”
Furthermore, Hogan shared his view that the same would happen with programmatic sales, posting one of the footnotes from the judge’s decision which suggests that the Judge had given some credence to Ripple’s fair notice defense.
SEC’s odds of appeal win
Finally, the lawyer has calculated the chances of the SEC winning on appeal, “surviving more litigation and still being able to maintain the lawsuit against Ripple into 2026,” placing them at 2.367% – “same odds as the Jets winning the Super Bowl!”
At the same time, another legal expert and popular commentator on the case, Bill Morgan, noted that the SEC had “lost badly and it deserved to lose badly despite the success on institutional sales,” adding that he wished the securities watchdog “all the worst in the penalties phase of the litigation and that the court gives the smallest penalties possible.”
As Morgan confirmed in an October 20 post, the next phase in the Ripple case is for the two sides to meet and agree on the remedies against the blockchain company for violations regarding its institutional sales of XRP.”
It is also worth mentioning that the Fox Bussiness journalist Eleanor Terrett shared insider information from the SEC, according to which, although the agency withdrew the charges against Ripple’s executives, “all other parts of the case, including classification of all offers and sale of XRP as an investment scheme, remain on the table,” as she said on October 20.
Meanwhile, XRP, the token that was at the center of the whole judicial ordeal for Ripple, was at press time trading at the price of $0.5252, recording an increase of 1.37% on the day, a 6.42% gain across the week, and an advance of 2.56% on its monthly chart, as per the latest data on October 23.
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