cryptoslate.com
The court has levied a $125 million fine on Ripple in the lawsuit filed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), ending the four-year-long dispute.
District Judge Analisa Torres from the District Court of the Southern District of New York partially rejected the SEC’s motion for remedies, which demanded over $2 billion from Ripple as compensation for allegedly selling $XRP as an unregistered security.
According to the filing:
“The Court shall enter a final judgment enjoining Ripple from further violations of the securities laws and imposing a civil penalty of $125,035,150.”
The ruling comes after the court granted a partial summary judgment to both parties in July 2023. According to the filings, the court found that Ripple’s institutional sales of $XRP constituted investment contracts and, therefore, violated securities laws.
However, the court also ruled that Ripple’s programmatic sales and other distributions of $XRP did not meet the criteria for investment contracts under the Supreme Court’s Howey test and, therefore, did not constitute securities sales.
$XRP’s price leaped 18% in minutes after the news broke and was trading at $0.61 as of press time, based on CryptoSlate data.