The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has chosen to withdraw charges against Ripple’s CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, and Executive Chairman, Chris Larsen, the agency said in a Thursday court filing. This move marks a departure from the agency’s prolonged legal pursuit against the cryptocurrency company.
The scheduled trial, slated for the next year, has been canceled following a mutual agreement between the involved parties to voluntarily dismiss the aiding and abetting charges with prejudice. Notably, this implies that these charges cannot be refiled in the future. While the SEC drops charges against the executives, it will persist in its legal action against Ripple.
Brad Garlinghouse commented in a press statement, “For nearly three years, Chris and I have been the subject of baseless allegations from a rogue regulator with a political agenda. Instead of looking for the criminals stealing customer funds on offshore exchanges that were courting political favor, the SEC went after the good guys.”
Ripple had previously secured a partial victory in July when a judge ruled that the company did not violate federal securities laws by making XRP available to retail investors on exchanges. However, the ruling acknowledged that the company had breached federal securities law in selling XRP directly to institutional investors.
The dropped charges pertain to institutional sales, a facet that will continue to be a point of discussion between the SEC and Ripple. The filing on Thursday indicated that both parties plan to confer on potential briefing schedules concerning the remedies against Ripple for its Section 5 violations in the Institutional Sales of XRP.
