It’s time for the SEC to settle with Coinbase and Ripple
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In every major litigation, there comes a moment when you realize it’s time to settle. A ruling doesn’t go your way, a juror gives your legal team the side eye, the judge makes it clear it’s time for a settlement conference. After Judge Analisa Torres’ decision in SEC v. Ripplethe time has come for the United States Securities and Exchange Commission to settle the remainder of its case against Ripple Labs — as well as its case against Coinbase (NASDAQ:COIN).
The SEC’s attack on crypto has used a flexible legal definition of what constitutes a security that must register with the SEC under a legal test established by the Supreme Court in the 1946 case SEC v. Howey. Through most of its history, the SEC used this tool to go after outright frauds and scams with little economic reality behind them. You can understand why judges tended to give the SEC the benefit of the doubt and made the test increasingly flexible over a series of historical scam cases. Using this flexible test to attach legitimate crypto projects is different and, ultimately, leaves crypto projects with no way to register.
J.W. Verret is an associate professor at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. He is a practicing crypto forensic accountant and also practices securities law at Lawrence Law LLC. He is a member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board’s Advisory Council and a former member of the SEC Investor Advisory Committee. He also leads the Crypto Freedom Lab, a think tank fighting for policy change to preserve freedom and privacy for crypto developers and users.
