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- XRP holders have been able to celebrate a victory against the SEC as the court has granted permission to file a motion to intervene.
- The filing deadline is April 19, with comments from the SEC and Ripple due to the court by May 3.
Attorney John E. Deaton and XRP holders yesterday claimed an important first partial victory regarding intervention in the lawsuit between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple. After Deaton filed a formal pre-filing pleading, he was granted permission to file a motion to intervene in the ongoing case on behalf of over 10,500 XRP holders. In her order, Judge Analisa Torres also ruled on the time schedule.
According to the ruling, the motion to intervene must be filed no later than April 19. After that, the SEC, as the plaintiff, must file its opposition paper, and Ripple, Garlinghouse and Larsen must file their reply paper in court by May 3, if available. Again, two weeks later, on May 17, Deaton has to send his response to the SEC’s opposition paper and Ripple’s response to Judge Torres, if any.
For the XRP community, this is a major partial victory, while for the SEC it is a resounding defeat, especially since the regulator previously argued vehemently for a denial. Even though Judge Torres did not grant the motion (yet), she rejected the SEC’s arguments that XRP holders should be denied the opportunity to file.
As CNF reported, the SEC and Ripple filed their position papers on Deaton’s intervention a few days ago. The regulator argued that Deaton is not explaining what claims he wants to make. The SEC also reasoned that it is not liable. Arguably the SEC’s most controversial and misleading claim, however, was that Deaton and the intervenors are only concerned with a relisting on crypto exchanges in order to be able to “trade XRP speculatively again.”
Reacting to this, Deaton stated via Twitter that the SEC letter to Judge Torres was “the most misleading letter” he had ever read submitted to a court.
Tenreiro is clearly trying to make me look bad by claiming that my motivation in seeking to intervene is for profit taking. When I read that, I said to myself: ‘I don’t talk about the price of #XRP – what the hell is he talking about?’
The truth is I never said the purpose of re-listing was for price appreciation or anything close to that. But that’s what he’s claiming I said. I looked it up. The comment that I made was over the likelihood of whether the SEC would inform exchanges that they could re-list.
As Deaton discussed, there are other examples in which the SEC twists or miscontextualizes the attorney’s words to influence the court and make the intentions of Deaton and the XRP holders look bad.
