Judge says SEC can appeal XRP ruling

Judge Analisa Torres granted the request for leave to file a motion to file an interlocutory appeal Thursday, giving the SEC until Friday to file the motion itself

A federal judge has allowed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to appeal against her ruling that Ripple did not breach securities laws in making XRP available to retail traders by putting it on exchanges.

Judge Analisa Torres granted the request for leave to file a motion to file an interlocutory appeal Thursday, giving the Securities and Exchange Commission until Friday to file the motion itself. The SEC announced it was filing the appeal last week, after indicating it would do so in July.

Ripple has until September 1 to file its reply to the motion, and the Securities and Exchange Commission can respond by September 8. Should the SEC win its motion, it can then ask an appeals court for consent to file the actual appeal of the ruling.

Ripple CLO Stuart Alderoty earlier said on X, previously called Twitter, that the firm opposed the request.

There is no extraordinary situation here that would justify deviating from the rule needing all issues as to all parties to be resolved before an appeal, Alderoty added.

The price of XRP did not appear to respond much to the order itself, though it is down nearly 4 per cent over the last 24 hours, as per CoinGecko.

The Securities and Exchange Commission has a steep hill to climb in receiving consent from Judge Torres, stated ConsenSys Senior Counsel and Director of Global Regulatory Matters Bill Hughes.

The legal standard is a hard one to satisfy, and the particulars of this case also do not help SEC’s argument in favour of appeal. In fact, the Securities and Exchange Commission itself has undercut its current arguments for an appeal by earlier hinting that a decision in Ripple does not really bear on any other crypto securities lawsuit. It is not likely that the court will be convinced by them speaking out of both sides of their mouth, Hughes added. And even if Judge Torres does grant their motion, they then have another steep mountain to climb – getting the Second Circuit’s consent to file an appeal.