The XRP (CRYPTO: XRP) lawsuit is still underway. According to Finance Feeds, Judge Sarah Netburn will be ruling on important procedural matters in the coming weeks. We’ll have to wait to see how that turns out. In the meantime, we have received one new tidbit of information that suggests this case could take many new twists and turns.
An opinion from former SEC enforcement chair Robert Cohen implied that the SEC won’t quit if it loses its lawsuit at trial.
Robert Cohen is a former SEC boss who believes that the SEC will continue to pursue Ripple Labs for years after the initial lawsuit ends. If its suit is dismissed or results in an unfavourable ruling, the SEC will either appeal or pursue different legal strategies. This suggests that SEC vs. Ripple Labs could go on longer than it initially looked like it would, potentially delaying the rally in XRP that many are expecting should Ripple win the case.
Cohen’s statement
Robert Cohen gave an interview last week in which he claimed that the SEC would eventually prevail over Ripple Labs. Among other things, he claimed that
- The SEC previously prevailed over Blockvest, despite an initial loss;
- The SEC has other avenues of prosecution to pursue; and
- The commission would likely eventually prevail in some form.
Taken as a whole, these comments suggest high confidence from Cohen that the SEC will eventually achieve some sort of victory over Ripple Labs. The question is, when and how?
Will the SEC appeal?
If the SEC loses its case against Ripple Labs, its most obvious second option to pursue is to appeal the verdict. In the U.S., people who lose lawsuits are entitled to take their case to higher courts, who can overturn the lower courts’ decisions. If the SEC loses the trial but wins on appeal, the matter will likely go to re-trial with a different judge.
Another option for the SEC is to pursue a different lawsuit or file criminal charges. Either of these options are open, although a judge is unlikely to hear another lawsuit that argues basically the same thing currently being argued.
Implications for crypto traders
The most obvious implication of the latest XRP lawsuit news is this: this matter isn’t over.
Not only is the current XRP lawsuit still ongoing, but SEC officials are giving signals that they intend to pursue this until the bitter end. Many commentators expect XRP to rally immediately after Ripple wins the lawsuit, but if the SEC brings another suit or files an appeal right afterward, the rally may be short lived. In fact, no rally may even occur.
This year, we have seen Ripple accumulate many wins on procedural matters, but XRP still declined in price. Cryptocurrency is a space where individual assets are highly correlated with one another, so broader crypto market moves will probably influence the price of XRP more than the lawsuit will. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen. One thing is certain: if Robert Cohen is right, the SEC isn’t going to give up.
