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Row of cryptocurrency coins including Ethereum, Bitcoin, Ripple, and Litecoin on scattered U.S. currency bills. QuoteInspector.com/flickr

KEY POINTS

  • Deaton refuted that SEC has a 50-50 victory in the Ripple case
  • He said the SEC has only 90% chance of winning its legal dispute with Ripple
  • XRP was trading in the green zone at $6802 as of 4:36 a.m. ET on Monday

The legal victory of Ripple Labs is 99.9% guaranteed if the blockchain firm pays the settlement amount of $20 million or less, Crypto Law founder and pro-XRP lawyer John Deaton has said.

Deaton made the claim in a post on X, formerly Twitter, Sunday in response to Ripple Labs chief legal officer Stuart Alderoty, who said the court ruling on the SEC vs Govil case underlined that the financial regulator cannot ask for a "crippling disgorgement award without first proving that 'investors' suffered actual financial harm. In other words, no harm, no foul."

The Crypto Law founder rejected the idea that the result of the SEC vs Ripple Labs case is an even 50/50, noting that it is closer to a 90/10 advantage, in favor of the blockchain firm. He further said that if Ripple pays $20 million or less in settlement, it should be a 99.9% victory.

"The people who've argued that the SEC got a 50-50 victory in the @Ripple case are 💯 wrong. It was more like 90-10 in Ripple's favor. If Ripple ends up paying $20M or less it's a 99.9% legal victory," Deaton's post read.

Jeremy Hogan, a pro-XRP lawyer and a partner at Hogan & Hogan, also shared his opinion on the matter and said that the law "allows the SEC to seek 'disgorgement,' penalties and interest."

He then explained that "disgorgement is the 'taking away' of profits from the rule breaker (Ripple). The Court held that about $770 million sales of XRP to institutional investors were improper."

According to Hogan, Ripple has several arguments on this issue, and it can "deduct business expenses from the total," citing the Liu vs SEC case from 2020, which said holding courts may go for disgorgement "that does not exceed a wrongdoer's net profits."

Moreover, the lawyer mentioned that the Second District Court of Appeal upheld that "the amount of disgorgement must be 'awarded for victims,'" and by victims, the law is referring to "individuals/entities who lost money on an investment."

Hogan further argued that "if an XRP purchaser paid .30 and the price is now .60, they are not a victim and therefore no disgorgement."

The lawyer also pointed out that "the SEC has to prove some nexus between the purchaser of XRP and the United States."

"In other words, if Ripple sold XRP to a German investment company with no ties to the U.S., the SEC has no jurisdiction over that sale. The 'nexus' question will be interesting," he said.

XRP, the native cryptocurrency of Ripple Labs, was trading in the green zone at $6802 as of 4:36 a.m. ET on Monday, with a 24-hour trading volume up by 163.65% at $2,519,016,776 — representing a 9.40% increase in the last 24 hours and a 22.87% gain over the past seven days.

Based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap, XRP's total circulating supply stands at 53,615,837,759 XRP, with its value up by 9.42% at a $36,476,515,583 market cap

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