Tag: Chris Larsen

How Ripple Execs’ Grit & Litigation Forced SEC To Back Down

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By Aislinn Keely. (Law360). October 27, 2023.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission called off a looming trial against executives of blockchain firm Ripple this month after counsel at Cleary and Paul Weiss made clear their clients were eager to have their day in court and intended to force the SEC to face a record of evidence that didn’t support the claim the defendants knowingly violated securities laws when they sold Ripple’s crypto token.

It’s rare for the SEC to drop a case once it has brought a complaint, and the regulator made headlines when it did just that, dismissing claims that Ripple co-founder Christian Larsen and company CEO Brad Garlinghouse “aided and abetted” sales of Ripple’s digital token XRP to institutions.

Martin Flumenbaum of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison LLP, who represented Larsen, called the Oct. 19 dismissal an “unprecedented victory.”

Read more on the unprecedented victory here: Law360

Ripple Labs Can Question Former SEC Official in Suit Over XRP

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By Chris Dolmetsch. July 15, 2021. (Bloomberg)

Ripple Labs Inc. can question a former Securities and Exchange Commission official about the agency’s policy decisions as the company fights a lawsuit accusing it of misleading investors about its XRP cryptocurrency, a federal judge ruled.

The SEC sued Ripple, co-founder Christian Larsen and Chief Executive Officer Bradley Garlinghouse in New York last year, saying they had created a “vacuum” that allowed them to sell XRP into a market with limited information they chose to share. The agency alleges that the two men personally profited by about $600 million and ignored legal advice that the cryptocurrency could be considered an investment contract and therefore a security. It accused them of selling the virtual tokens without registering them as such.

Ripple has said the SEC can’t regulate XRP because, as a virtual currency used in international and domestic transactions, it’s a medium of exchange and not a security.

Read the Full Article Here.