Ripple
Ripple-SEC case: Over 6000 XRP holders want to participate as third-party defendants
Posted:
| Last updated: March 6th, 2024
In a new set of developments in the ongoing legal battle between Ripple and the US regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), over 6,000 XRP holders have petitioned to participate in the lawsuit.
In a letter to Judge Analisa Torres, John Deaton, an XRP hodler, of Deaton Law Firm LLC has filed a motion to intervene on behalf of other XRP Holders. Deaton hoped to move the judge to allow this intervention of XRP holders to participate as third-party defendants.
On 14 March, Deaton further wrote:
It is not just Ripple’s current distribution of XRP that is at issue, but whether present-day XRP owned by XRP Holders are considered securities because most US exchanges have delisted and/or suspended XRP trading entirely, thereby causing the XRP held by XRP Holders untradeable and, thus, useless. The SEC had an opportunity to amend the Complaint and provide clarity to the markets but, instead, deferred that responsibility to this Honorable Court.
Deaton argued that although Ripple may be focused on its own “current distributions of XRP” and its need for regulatory clarity on the status of the crypto asset, XRP Holders’ interests “are not adequately represented” as Ripple stated that “holders of XRP cannot objectively rely on Ripple’s efforts.”
Deaton and more than 6,000 other XRP holders have moved to intervene in the case, as SEC reportedly stated that “this Court is the exclusive forum” to hear claims regarding the SEC-Ripple case. Given that XRP holders “cannot rely” on the company to protect their interests, this makes the holders’ intervention “necessary,” Deaton argued.
On his website, dubbed cryptolaw, Deaton claimed that SEC lawsuit against Ripple and its executives caused over “$15 billion in losses for XRP holders.”
Last week, former Acting Chairman Elad Roisman filed a motion to dismiss a petition filed by XRP investors who sought to amend SEC’s complaint. Petitioners hoped to change SEC’s decision to amend the complaint that mentions that XRP is security.
