Pryor Cashman Partner Jeffrey Alberts, who co-heads the firm's FinTech Financial Institutions, and White Collar Defense + Investigations Practices, spoke with Blockworks and Crowdfund Insider about the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's expected appeal of a federal court ruling in its action against Ripple Labs, creator of the XRP crypto token.
In "The SEC is vying for a Ripple appeal. Here's what to watch out for," Jeff told Blockworks that in the Southern District of New York decision:
Judge Torres' conclusions that digital assets such as cryptocurrency tokens are not themselves securities could severely limit the SEC's ability to apply regulations to platforms that custody or facilitate transfers or exchanges of digital assets... If the SEC's appeal is successful in expanding the categories of XRP sales constituting securities violations, it likely would increase the potential liability of Garlinghouse and Larsen for aiding and abetting those violations.
He also commented to Crowdfund Insider in "SEC to Appeal Ripple-XRP Decision: If the appeals Court Adopts the decision it could 'put a big hole' in its case against Coinbase," that the SEC's appeal is driven by its longer-range efforts to regulate cryptocurrency, which the recent decision could hamper:
First, Judge Torres's conclusions that digital assets such as cryptocurrency tokens are not themselves securities could severely limit the SEC's ability to apply regulations to platforms that custody or facilitate transfers or exchanges of digital assets. Second, Judge Torres's conclusion that sales of XRP over public digital asset exchanges were not investment contracts could limit the SEC's ability to regulate secondary market sales of digital assets, even though Judge Torres's decision did not address secondary sales of XRP.
Read the full articles using the links below.
Resources
- [Blockworks] The SEC is vying for a Ripple appeal. Here's what to watch out for
- [Crowdfund Insider] SEC to Appeal Ripple-XRP Decision: If the appeals Court Adopts the decision it could 'put a big hole' in its case against Coinbase
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