Ripple contests $2B SEC fine, says penalty shouldn’t exceed $10M

Cross-border payment protocol Ripple contested the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) request to impose a $2 billion fine against the blockchain company, saying the penalty should not exceed $10 million. 

In a new filing, Ripple Labs opposed the SEC’s request to a federal judge to impose the almost $2 billion fine on the company. Ripple urged the court to deny the SEC’s requests for an injunction, disgorgement and pre-judgment interest.

Ripple also said the court should issue a more reasonable civil penalty, which should not be more than $10 million. The filing said:

Ripple has every intent of adhering to that guidance in the future and every incentive to do so. The SEC’s Draconian remedial requests are ungrounded in law or principle. This Court should reject them in their entirety.

The filing highlighted that the SEC asked the court to ask Ripple to pay $876 million in disgorgement, $198 million in pre-judgment interest and another $876 million in civil penalties. In total, the amount reached almost $2 billion.

Ripple revealed the requested fine amount almost a month ago. On March 25, Ripple Labs chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty revealed that the SEC asked a federal judge to impose such fines on the blockchain company. The lawyer said the SEC remains bent on punishing and intimidating Ripple and the crypto industry.

Within the new filing, Ripple described the fine as “unreasonable” and said that $10 million is the actual amount that reflects a portion of their actual revenues. Ripple redacted the actual percentage shared in the document.

The filing also highlighted that such an amount “would be proportionate in both percentage and dollar amount to comparable digital-asset cases where there was no culpable mental state and no substantial harm or risk of harm to others.”

Source: Stuart Alderoty

On X, Alderoty suggested that the SEC’s actions and ask for the fine are proof of its “ongoing intimidation against all of crypto” in the United States. The Ripple lawyer said the case had no allegations or findings of recklessness or fraud.

In addition, the legal officer believes that Ripple won on “significant” issues and hoped that the judge would fairly approach the final remedies phase of the case.