SEC to Seek $2 Billion Fine From Ripple in Escalating Legal Battle

• Stuart Alderoty, Chief Legal Officer at Ripple Labs, revealed on X that the SEC plans to seek $2 billion in fines and penalties against Ripple.
• Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse criticized the SEC's unprecedented demands, promising to continue challenging the SEC's actions in this legal dispute.

The relationship between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the cryptocurrency sector appears to be quite strained. And in the latest development in this ongoing saga, a new controversy has emerged. 

Stuart Alderoty, the Chief Legal Officer of Ripple Labs, announced via a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Monday that the SEC is going to demand fines and penalties amounting to $2 billion in its lawsuit against Ripple Labs. 

This lawsuit pertains to the company's sales of its cryptocurrency, XRP.

Ripple's CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, also took to X on Monday to emphasize the matter. Additionally, he noted that Ripple intends to keep highlighting the actions of the SEC.

“The SEC plans to ask the Judge for $2B in a case that involved no allegations (let alone findings) of fraud or recklessness. There is absolutely no precedent for this. We will continue to expose the SEC for what they are when we respond to this,” wrote Garlinghouse in an X post.

Ripple has been embroiled in a legal conflict with the SEC since 2020. In December of that year, the regulator initiated legal action against Ripple Labs, including co-founder Christian Larsen and the current CEO, Brad Garlinghouse.

The lawsuit claims that Ripple has accumulated $1.3 billion through offerings of unregistered securities starting from 2013.

However, last year, Ripple managed to bag a partial victory in its legal battle with the SEC. A judge determined that the programmatic sales of XRP to retail investors did not constitute securities transactions.

Edited by Harshajit Sarmah