According to the legal team representing Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse, the SEC is acting “inappropriately” and should be sanctioned.
The ongoing case between the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and crypto remittance network Ripple has taken on a new dimension. The legal team representing Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and executive chairman and co-founder Chris Larsen recently hit back at the SEC over inappropriate conduct. The exec’s lawyers filed a letter condemning the Commission’s conduct and called for immediate sanctions against the agency.
Garlinghoue and Larsen’s attorneys posted screenshots of the letter, published on March 24th, on Twitter with a caption which read:
“#XRPCommunity #SECGov v. #Ripple #XRP Ripple, Chris Larsen and Brad Garlinghouse have filed a Letter in further support of their Motion to Strike the SEC’s late-filed Metz Supplemental Expert Report.”
According to the letter, the SEC failed to prove that Dr. Metz’s last-minute “expert report” is logically relevant to the trial. Since the Commission cannot satisfy this, the Ripple legal team opines that the outcome is in prejudice.
Garlinghouse’s lawyers also maintain that the SEC’s dishonest conduct and inadequate transparency “necessitates sanctions.”
Recap of The Latest Development in the Ripple vs SEC Saga
Dr. Albert Metz previously submitted a supplemental expert rebuttal report to the court on behalf of the SEC. However, he faced criticism from other experts who stated that he failed to adequately prove that XRP price movements involved some manipulation. XRP is the native token of the Ripple payment protocol.
The criticism against Metz also suggested that his reasoning was heavily influenced by hearsay about Ripple, rather than facts. The Garlinghouse letter also stated that the securities and finance expert wrote an unauthorized reply. In this reply, Dr. Metz allegedly included new opinions that were not present in the original report. As a result, Garlinghouse’s legal team views Metz’s actions as giving unfair advantages to the prosecution. The team strongly believes this because it does not have enough time to mull over and reasonably respond to any new accusations.
The Ripple legal team’s annoyance at the SEC is not the first of its kind against the regulatory body. The Commission’s conduct in the same case has also been labeled inappropriate before. For instance, after Ripple secured a court grant to unseal SEC internal documents, the Commission fought furiously to have the requested notes redacted. Assumptions suggest this was so that such notes would not inappropriately reflect the “author’s own thinking of the staff’s deliberations.”
Throughout this trial, including the run-up, Ripple’s displeasure towards the SEC is well known, repeatedly accusing the regulatory agency of unfair treatment.
Ripple and XRP
Ripple is a real-time gross payment blockchain settlement system. Released in 2012 and built on a distributed open-source protocol, Ripple supports tokens that represent a slew of products. These include fiat currency, digital currencies, as well as commodities. The ledger’s native currency XRP is currently changing hands at $0.8367.
Tolu is a cryptocurrency and blockchain enthusiast based in Lagos. He likes to demystify crypto stories to the bare basics so that anyone anywhere can understand without too much background knowledge.
When he’s not neck-deep in crypto stories, Tolu enjoys music, loves to sing and is an avid movie lover.
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