- In the lawsuit between the SEC and Ripple, Judge Torres denied John E. Deaton’s motion to intervene by 6,000 XRP holders.
- Deaton has not yet commented on further steps.
After attorney John E. Deaton filed a motion to intervene in the case of Ripple Labs against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on behalf of 6,000 XRP investors only the day before yesterday, March 14, the motion was now already denied yesterday – within one day – by Judge Analisa Torres. Under Deaton’s motion, Judge Torres states succinctly:
DENIED without prejudice to renewal in a motion that complies with Rule III(A) of the Court’s Individual Practices in Civil Cases.
SO ORDERED.
Dated: March 15, 2021
Neither Deaton nor CryptoLaw had commented on Judge Torres’ decision on Twitter at press time. In a tweet yesterday, however, Deaton was still combative, even if he himself admitted that the chances of the application being approved are rather low.
[…] So when I filed the Writ, I was very aware that our chances of having a judge order the SEC’s Chairman to amend the Complaint to exclude today’s XRP, owned by holders with no connection to Ripple, were very low.
The experts and critics will claim that I’m wasting my time and I’m simply spinning my wheels going nowhere with the motion to ntervene. They will say the same thing when a class action is filed. And, in the end, maybe they will be correct and we lose this motion and maybe, later, a class action is also dismissed on technical and legal grounds. If so, the critics and legal experts will get to tweet “I told you so”.
It’s important to note, however, that the application was denied without prejudice to renewal, which means Deaton could resubmit the application.
As CNF reported, Deaton filed the motion to assert the rights of XRP holders in the Ripple vs. SEC case after the SEC filed a motion to dismiss Deaton’s petition on March 5, arguing that “the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York is the only forum” to determine XRP’s status as a security or non-security. Deaton said:
If the Southern District of New York is the exclusive venue for decisions that have already proven to have a massive impact on XRP holders and are likely to set the course for the future of all cryptocurrencies in the U.S., then that’s where we must go.