SEC’s Motion to Appeal Loss in Ripple Case Is Denied

A federal judge has rejected the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s bid to appeal its ground-shaking loss against Ripple, the crypto company associated with the XRP token.

XRP’s price rallied about 5% on the news.

District Judge Analisa Torres said in a brief ruling Tuesday that the SEC had failed to meet its burden under the law to show that there were controlling questions of law or that there are substantial grounds for differences of opinion.

The decision isn’t a complete loss for the SEC, though. The judge set an April 2024 trial date for other issues that still need resolution. The agency may still try to appeal the overall case after.

The judge had previously ruled in July that while Ripple violated federal securities laws in selling XRP to institutionalinvestors directly, it had not done so by making XRP available to retail customers through programmatic sales to exchanges. That decision cast doubt on how strongly securities regulators would be able to police crypto.

The SEC announced after July’s ruling that it would file an interlocutory appeal and move to stay any further decision-making as it bid for an appeal court review of Judge Torres’ ruling.

Spokespeople for the SEC and Ripple did not immediately return requests for comment.

UPDATE (Oct. 3, 2023, 23:21 UTC): Updates XRP's price.