The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been granted leave to appeal a ruling by Judge Analisa Torres of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that Ripple did not violate securities laws in making XRP available to retail traders. Judge Torres granted the SEC’s request for leave to file a motion to file an interlocutory appeal on Thursday, giving the SEC until Friday to file the motion itself. Ripple has until Sept. 1 to file its response to the motion, and the SEC can reply by Sept. 8.
Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stuart Alderoty previously said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that the company opposed the request. “There is no extraordinary circumstance here that would justify departing from the rule requiring all issues as to all parties to be resolved before an appeal,” he said.
ConsenSys Senior Counsel and Director of Global Regulatory Matters Bill Hughes commented that the SEC has a difficult legal standard to satisfy in order to get approval from Judge Torres. “The SEC itself has undermined its current arguments for an appeal by previously indicating that a decision in Ripple does not really bear on any other crypto securities lawsuit. It’s unlikely that the court will be persuaded by them speaking out of both sides of their mouth,” he said.
Dave Rodman, the founder and managing partner of the Rodman Law Group, added that the appeal process itself won’t pause the rest of the case. However, if the SEC wins approval from both Judge Torres and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to file the appeal, the circuit court may issue a stay on all proceedings until the appeal has been resolved.