A US judge swatted down a joint motion from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the payments firm Ripple that would have taken steps toward ending their longstanding legal battle.
Ripple and the SEC had filed a joint motion earlier this month for an “indicative ruling” to see whether District Judge Analisa Torres would be open to vacating the firm’s previously assigned $125 million civil penalty and reducing it to $50 million.
The SEC has been walking back numerous crypto enforcement actions since Donald Trump became president and Gary Gensler left as chair.
Torres, however, says both parties “fail to address the heavy burden they must overcome to vacate the injunction and substantially reduce the civil penalty.”
Writes the judge,
“Relief from judgment under Rule 60 is granted ‘only upon a showing of exceptional circumstances’… The parties have made no effort to satisfy that burden here; their request does not even mention the rule.
Accordingly, if jurisdiction were restored to this court, the court would deny the parties’ motion as procedurally improper.”
The SEC first sued the San Francisco-based payments firm in late 2020 for allegedly selling XRP as an unregistered security.
In 2023, Torres ruled that Ripple’s automated, open-market sales of XRP did not constitute security offerings, contrary to what the SEC alleged.
The judge did, however, side with the SEC’s claim that Ripple’s sales of XRP directly to institutional buyers were securities offerings.
Last August, Torres slapped Ripple with a $125 million civil penalty. Both the firm and the SEC appealed that number.
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