SEC Drops Charges against Top Ripple Executives

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has cleared the names of two top Ripple executives, Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO, and Chris Larsen, the Executive Chairman, from all the charges brought against them in the lawsuit that alleged that XRP was unregistered securities.

Announced yesterday (Thursday), the securities market regulator voted to dismiss the charges in prejudice.

SEC vs. Ripple: The End of a Three-Year Legal Battle

The SEC brought the charges against Ripple, Garlinghouse and Larsen, in late 2020. After a lengthy legal battle, a US court favored the blockchain firm last July. Although the SEC appealed against the decision, the court turned it down again earlier this month.

“For nearly three years, Chris and I have been the subject of baseless allegations from a rogue regulator with a political agenda,” said Garlinghouse. “Instead of looking for the criminals stealing customer funds on offshore exchanges that were courting political favor, the SEC went after the good guys – along with our entire company of innovators and entrepreneurs – who are building a regulated business based in the US.”

SEC’s Actions Pushed the Firm Offshore

Ripple is headquartered in San Francisco and has developed a blockchain-based infrastructure for cross-border payments. It has partnered with dozens of banks and major corporations to provide its products and services.

Despite being established in the US, the company has an extensive presence internationally. The official announcement blamed the SEC’s hostility for about 90 percent of Ripple’s business moving offshore. The company also highlighted that nearly 90 percent of its hirings in Q3 2023 were outside the US.

“Today, we are legally vindicated and personally redeemed in our battle against a troubling attempt to abuse the rules in order to advance a political agenda to suffocate crypto in America,” said Larsen.

“While justice ultimately prevailed, the government’s actions that led to this point raise questions about the origin, and motivation of this lawsuit. It is an abuse by the administrative state that politically connected special interests, with clear and proven conflicts of interest, were able to drag our names through the mud in an attempt to ruin us personally and destroy a company so many have worked so hard, for so long to build.”

Apart from Ripple, the SEC also slapped charges on Coinbase and Binance, two major names in the crypto industry. Some charges against Binance are serious, including co-mingling of customer funds, but Coinbase is being blamed for listing unregistered securities and running an illegal exchange.