XRP lawsuit: Court to allow Ripple’s Fair Notice defense and maintain charges against executives, atty Hogan predicts
“If I’m a betting man. Fair notice will be allowed, charges won’t be dismissed against brad and Chris….”, said @xrpmule, to which attorney Jeremy Hogan replied: “That’s what I’m thinking as well.”
The SEC v. Ripple lawsuit is heating up as Magistrate Analisa Torres returns to court to make significant rulings that will directly impact the outcome for Ripple, Brad Garlinghouse, Chris Larsen, the XRP Holders, and the whole cryptocurrency space in the United States.
Judge Torres has recently refused to file under seal a few exhibits against Ripple on the basis of public disclosure, which was deemed as a “great sign” for the XRP holders.
SEC v. Ripple heating up
Attorney Jeremy Hogan looked at the evidence and found them weaker than expected. In both, the SEC is likely to make the case Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen sold and marketed XRP as an investment contract.
In the case of Chris Larsen’s email exchange with a buyer of XRP, the case gets particularly interesting as the buyer of 30,000 EUR is a Portuguese national residing in Portugal, which should put the exchange of XRP and information outside of the SEC’s jurisdiction.
Twitter user @BJHoges asked for confirmation on that supposition: “The email to Larsen appears to be from an overseas individual. A US individual would not refer to purchasing $30k EUR. Therefore, how would this actually be relevant?”
Attorney Jeremy Hogan agreed. “The argument is that the email is not relevant because it was not sent to a U.S. National and the SEC only has jurisdiction over U.S. Nationals”.
Jeremy Hogan: “That’s what I’m thinking as well”
In that exchange with members of the XRP community, Twitter user @xrpmule laid down their prediction as to the upcoming rulings in the XRP lawsuit, namely on the SEC’s motion to strike Ripple’s fair notice defense, and the motion to dismiss charges against individual defendants Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen.
“If I’m a betting man. Fair notice will be allowed, charges won’t be dismissed against brad and Chris….“, said @xrpmule, to which attorney Jeremy Hogan replied: “That’s what I’m thinking as well.”
As to charges against Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen, the individual defendants argued the SEC does not plausibly allege that the co-founders knew or were reckless in not knowing that Ripple was violating section 5 or acting improperly.
The motion also argues that the SEC’s first claim fails because it does not allege that their personal offers or sales of XRP occurred in the United States. Even if their conduct in the US were relevant, the transactions in question are predominantly foreign and accordingly outside the scope of Section 5.
Indeed, the Chris Larsen email thread refers to an overseas sale of XRP. It is unclear if the SEC has material against Ripple and the individual defendants that is relevant to the SEC’s jurisdiction.
In the meantime, a JP Morgan report made a claim on why XRP is so correlated with Bitcoin, namely the lack of partners on the Ripple network using XRP for cross border payments. Critics have argued the data is outdated.
