Recently, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced their intention to file a “temporary appeal” regarding the ruling on the sale of XRP through Ripple’s program. This information was revealed in court records on Wednesday (August 9th).
According to the SEC, they are seeking to appeal a portion of the recent court decision while the lawsuit continues to be in progress. They mentioned that this approach could help avoid the need for two separate court proceedings.
The contents of the SEC’s court records indicate that they are attempting to verify the court’s decision regarding whether the provision and sale of XRP by Ripple through cryptocurrency asset trading platforms, and the exchange for labor and unrelated services, violate securities laws or not.
Previously, a federal judge had ruled that while the direct sale of XRP by Ripple to institutional investors constituted a violation of securities laws, selling XRP through a separate program to retail investors via trading platforms did not.
Judge Analisa Torres, of the United States District Court Southern District, is expected to address other issues that she hasn’t ruled upon yet in the second quarter of 2024.
In the court records, the SEC noted that Ripple needs to respond by August 16th (one week after the submission of the appeal) and proposed submitting a summary appeal on August 18th. Ripple will have two weeks to reply, and thereafter, the SEC will have an additional week to respond to Ripple if the judge includes a note in the records.
The SEC had previously discussed the possibility of appealing rulings in a separate case, when their lawyers requested that Judge Jed Rakoff of the same court reconsider dismissing Torres’s ruling on their own SEC lawsuit against Terraform Labs. However, Judge Rakoff declined this request and upheld Torres’s ruling.