Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of XRP issuing crypto entity “Ripple”, is hopeful that the ongoing court battle between Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and Ripple in which the plaintiff is SEC and Ripple and Garlinghouse are impleaded as defendants. Garlinghouse believes that the court case will not continue for long and will become to a favorable end in the next year.
Ripple’s CEO was with CNBC for an interview where he once again talked about the ongoing court battle between his company and SEC. However, this time his mood was pleasant than ever before and he was quite hopeful about the possible conclusion of the case.
He told the interviewer that the suit against Ripple, which was originally filed by SEC, will not proceed any longer. In fact, the case has come to a stage where the judge hearing the case would very much be passing the ruling. He said that though the Court took more time than they had expected yet the time was duly utilized by the Court.
As regards the outcome of the case, the interviewer asked Garlinghouse about what he is expecting. He said that he and his company have high hopes that the end judgment will most preferably be in favor of Ripple. He commented that especially in the last couple of hearings, the Judge has been asking pertinent questions which were otherwise skipping everyone’s attention. Certainly, the Court has observed that the case does not involve “Ripple” only. In fact, it has many things other than Ripple which need clarification from SEC’s side.
There hasn’t been an easy-going for SEC in the past hearings, said Garlinghouse. Either SEC would have to respond to the questions raised by the Court or either it would have to accept or reject their implications.
As regards the questions, Garlianghouse said that the Court has observed that the matter involves nepotism and contradiction. SEC had raised an allegation against Ripple that Ripple had sold securities, which were unregistered. In response, Ripple’s claim is that no sale of any unregistered securities had ever taken place at Ripple. In fact, Ripple had been in the business of issuing “Ripple” which is a “cryptocurrency” and not “securities”. However, the claim of the SEC is that “XRP” is to be treated as “securities”. In rebuttal Ripple had raised a question i.e. why Ethereum and Bitcoins have not been treated as “securities”.
The court is in the custody of XRP’s concept paper on the basis of which XRP was developed and issued in the US market. It has been argued by Ripple that XRP’s concept paper is the same as that of Ethereum and Bitcoin. In order to accept or reject the claim of Ripple, the Court categorically asked SEC to present its submissions along with supporting documents. However, SEC is avoiding responding to the said question which has been duly noted by the Court.
This is why Garlinghouse is positive that the case will end soon and with positive results.