The silence that had befallen upon the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission vs. Ripple[1] Labs lawsuit[2] broke last week, as the new year brought along with it new litigation for the case. In its latest filing, the San Fransisco-based blockchain company has now responded to the SEC’s newest attempt to strike down Ripple’s Fair Notice Defense.
Inadequate notice
Former federal prosecutor James K. Filan shared a copy of the filing[3] on Twitter, which was dated 10 January, and stated that the Fife case that has now been cited by the SEC in its pending motion to strike Ripple’s defense does not provide enough support to the agency’s claims. It noted,
“Fife does not support the SEC’s motion to strike Ripple’s affirmative defense that it lacked adequate notice that XRP is an investment contract.”
Last week, the SEC had filed[4] a notice to supplement its motion to strike Ripple’s Fair Notice Defense. It had cited the “Fife” case from December 2021 where the court had denied the defendant’s plea to dismiss a case filed by the SEC based on a fair notice defense. The regulatory body hoped to apply this outcome to Ripple’s use of the term “investment contract” by showing that the phrase has been bound by legal parameters since 1946.
In their response to the filing, however, Ripple’s lawyers have stated that in the case of Fife, the court had refused to dismiss the SEC’s case during the pleading stage itself. On the other hand, Ripple is using the fair notice defense as an “answer” to the SEC’s claims rather than trying to completely strike off the lawsuit as was the case in Fife vs. SEC. The filing further noted,
“Unlike in Fife, Ripple is not relying
