According to court documents, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has requested that a judge in New York punish Ripple Labs around $2 billion.
Chief legal officer of Ripple Labs Stuart Alderoty said on social media on Monday that the SEC was requesting a fine of this kind and that the court records will be made public by March 26 once they had been redacted.
In its proposal, the SEC requests that the court impose a $1.95 billion fine on Ripple Labs, which would include $876 million in disgorgement, $198 million in prejudgment interest, and a $876 million civil penalty.
The SEC launched a lawsuit against Ripple Labs and its management in December 2020, claiming that by selling XRP to institutional and retail clients, they had broken federal securities laws. Analisa Torres, a judge in New York, decided in July of last year that only Ripple’s institutional sales of XRP violated US law, not the selling of XRP on exchanges or through algorithms.
“In order to send a clear message that abuses of this nature will not be accepted, the SEC asks the Court to examine how easily actors, particularly in the crypto asset space, can today engage in the same sort of conduct as Ripple’s.”
The business will submit its answer to the SEC’s motion next month, according to Alderoty, who chastised the agency. As per the SEC filing, the defendant has to submit a response by April 22, 2024, at the latest.