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Ripple’s long-pending class action lawsuit has taken a step further as the courts have denied the plaintiff’s motion to move the case to the state courts and asked the plaintiffs to appoint a lead plaintiff/class representative.
There are four cases against Ripple that allege that XRP is a security and that Ripple violated state and federal laws by failing to register it as a security. The four cases were brought forward by Zakinov, Oconer, Coffey, and Greenwald.
Jake Chervinsky, a lawyer at Kobre & Kim LLP, tweeted the developments:
“Last month, the federal court denied the plaintiffs’ motions to return to state court, so the case will now stay federal.
At the time, I called this a “minor but meaningful” victory for Ripple. It’s a battle they fought hard to win, but a small one at the start of a long war.”
The judgment on the class action suit as explained by Jake Chervinsky is binding on the whole class. If Ripple resolved one class action, it would mean that XRP wouldn’t be labeled as “security” for all the plaintiffs.
The court has set a schedule for the litigation this year and the next phase of litigation include appointing a lead plaintiff, re-filing a consolidated complaint, and responding to the complaint. The court has provided the plaintiffs until May 20, 2019, to appoint a lead plaintiff and select a counsel for representing the class lead plaintiff.
Jake Chervinsky explained the next step in his tweet:
“… after lead plaintiff & lead counsel are appointed, the Court’s order gives them 45 days to file a new consolidated complaint asserting every legal violation that the class believes Ripple committed. At the very earliest, the consolidated complaint will be due in July.”
Ripple will be provided 45 days to respond to the consolidated complaint by the lead plaintiff, and it could take until September 2019 for Ripple to come up with a response on the matter. As suggested by Chervinsky, Ripple could also respond to the complaint by motion to dismiss, giving Ripple 30 additional days to reply.