These lessons may be particularly pertinent given the potential extraterritorial reach of certain U.S. regulators and that regional legislators may take cues from the US approach.
The SEC v. Ripple lawsuit is seen as the most relevant enforcement action by the SEC in the cryptocurrency space. There is still much pending on the lawsuit agenda, but the blockchain firm has recently seen a significant defeat against the plaintiff.
Ripple has been ordered to deliver recordings on the sales and marketing of XRP. This is likely to support the SEC’s case that the firm marketed the digital asset as an investment contract.
That hasn’t bothered the firm’s drive to expand its product range. It has announced the upcoming launch of Ripple Liquidity Hub to serve enterprises with access to the largest cryptos, including BTC, ETH, LTC, ETC, BCH and XRP.
In the meantime, SEC v. Ripple remains a precedent-setting lawsuit and is being widely observed by law experts, regulators, and market participants across the globe as it is likely to provoke change in the future regulatory framework in the United States, and create a domino effect in other jurisdictions.
Jones Day, an American international law firm based in Cleveland, Ohio, has published an article discussing the SEC’s practice of regulation by enforcement, with a focus on the SEC v. Ripple lawsuit, amid the various approaches to define and shape the legal and regulatory landscape for digital assets.
The US approach has created regulatory gaps, overlapping jurisdiction of enforcement agencies, a complex framework that is subject to constant change that has been driving entities to avoid U.S. jurisdiction. These have nonetheless been subjected to U.S. enforcement action.
The attorneys at Jones Day have written the document in order to help market participants avoid some of the common pitfalls by gleaning what lessons they can from the United States’ eight-year history of cryptocurrency-related enforcement actions.
The paper…
