In a new video, attorney Jeremy Hogan has revealed a “new hope” for the XRP community. It’s “a super important litigation strategy that Ripple is going to implement, and I call it the new hope.” (Disclaimer: Neither Jeremy Hogan nor Crypto News Flash
are providing financial or legal advice).
The SEC has jurisdiction over trading, i.e., buying and selling, but not holding securities in the United States. Therefore, security comes under the SEC’s jurisdiction only if it was a security at the sale time. Each sale must be considered individually, as circumstances may change.
Generally, at the time of the sale, Ripple must have advertised the expectation that XRP would increase in value due to its activities. The key, then, is whether and, if so, when Ripple was the primary driver of XRP’s price at a given point in time.
Hogan also referenced a statement from SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce in the video. Concerning the Howey test and the underlying 1946 case, she recently emphasized that the issue was the sale manner. The oranges, which is what the case was about, obviously could not be classified as securities – but only the sale.
In this regard, Hogan again combed through previous correspondence between the SEC and Ripple, finding evidence that this very thing could be part of Ripple’s strategy. At the end of the pre-trial letter, Ripple stated, “Accordingly, Ripple’s ongoing sales of XRP cannot constitute a securities offering.” Moreover, in its final letter, Ripple established an affirmative defense that there was “no likelihood of future violations.”
Under U.S. law, a motion for summary judgment, even a partial one, can be filed at any time up to 30 days after the completion of all discovery. This means for Ripple’s case that they can file the motion anytime up until sometime in September.
According to Hogan, the current status is where the SEC is “weakest.” Therefore, the SEC’s position will be that all sales, including the escrow account, must be viewed as one big sale proposition stretching from 2013 to the present. About this, the SEC will bring out the Kik Interactive case where two individual sales were considered as one “big whole.” So the SEC won’t “give up without a fight,” Hogan said.