The long-running legal battle between Ripple Labs and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) seems to finally be near an end, with Ripple emerging victorious.
The SEC will return the lion’s share of the $125 million court-ordered fine paid by Ripple last year, according to a Tuesday X post from Ripple’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty. The agency will keep just $50 million and return the $75 million balance to Ripple.
The proposed settlement, which is subject to commissioner and court approval, comes just a week after the SEC agreed to drop its appeal of U.S. District Court Judge Analisa Torres’ 2023 ruling. In her decision, Judge Torres found that Ripple’s programmatic sales of XRP to retail exchanges did not violate federal securities laws. The judge determined that only Ripple’s institutional sales violated securities regulations, leading to the initial $125 million fine. While this fine is substantial, it is a mere fraction of the nearly $2 billion in civil penalties, disgorgement, and prejudgment interest that the SEC had sought initially.
As part of the pending settlement agreement, Ripple has agreed to drop its cross-appeal regarding the SEC’s appeal. Alderoty also mentioned that the SEC will request the court lift the standard injunction that has been imposed against Ripple.
Following the news, XRP experienced a brief uptick of 1.5%, before paring some gains, trading around $2.47. Despite this bounce, the token was down 0.5% over the past 24 hours, reflecting a broader trend consistent with Bitcoin (BTC) and the performance of the CoinDesk 20 Index.
A representative for the SEC did not immediately respond to CoinDesk’s request for comment.
— Krisztian Sandor contributed reporting.
