The Securities and Exchange Commission can’t appeal a recent court decision pertaining to Ripple, a federal judge in Manhattan ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Judge Analisa Torres’ July 13 decision that the sale of Ripple’s native token XRP on public exchanges didn’t violate federal securities laws because, while it’s a security when sold to institutional investors, XRP is not a security when sold to retail investors trading on digital asset exchanges.
The regulator asked for permission in August to appeal Torres’ decision on grounds that there was “substantial ground for differences of opinion,” and asked for a stay on the appeal due to pending court cases that would be affected by the appeal’s outcome. The SEC is engaged in legal battles with other crypto firms — Binance and Coinbase — over their own alleged securities violations.
The judge Tuesday found no "substantial ground for difference of opinion," and said the SEC failed to show there were “controlling question[s] of law.”
Torres, however, set an April 23 trial date to address other aspects of Ripple’s case. The SEC may have an opportunity after that to appeal the case overall.
Ripple’s chief legal officer, Stuart Alderoty, took to X, formerly Twitter, on Tuesday in response to Torres’ ruling.
“The Court’s July 13 ruling was, and remains, the law of the land,” Alderoty wrote. “XRP is not a security.”
The SEC did not respond to a request for comment.
