Judge finds Ripple Labs liable for $125M penalty in SEC case

A federal judge has ordered Ripple Labs to pay a $125 million civil penalty and said the firm was “permanently restrained and enjoined” from violating United States securities laws as part of a case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

In an Aug. 7 filing in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, Judge Analisa Torres found Ripple liable for more than $125 million, which it was expected to pay to the SEC within 30 days. The judgment came following competing motions between Ripple and the financial regulator, which argued that the firm should pay a maximum civil penalty of $10 million or $2 billion, respectively.

The ruling seemingly puts Ripple’s case with the SEC in its final stages since the regulator initially filed the lawsuit in December 2020. At the time, the SEC alleged that Ripple used XRP as an unregistered security to raise funds. In July 2023, Judge Torres ruled that the XRP token was not a security regarding programmatic sales on exchanges.