By Pete Brush. April 6, 2021. (Law360).
Ripple Labs on Tuesday won discovery from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission concerning its internal discussions about whether Ripple’s XRP tokens are similar to cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether, which have not been officially deemed securities.
It was a “high-stakes” discovery win, U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn said, as she ruled from the bench in the SEC’s suit claiming San Francisco-based Ripple and two top executives sold $1.38 billion of XRP without registering the offering as required by federal securities laws.
“I’m going to grant in large part the defendants’ motion,” she said.