Former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) executive Joseph Hall says he’s “perplexed” by the SEC’s lawsuit against Ripple.
The regulator sued the San Francisco-based payments company in December of 2020 for allegedly issuing XRP as an unregistered security and claims remains an unregistered security to this day.
In a new interview with the Thinking Crypto podcast, Hall says that he’s “sympathetic” to Ripple’s “fair notice defense.”
“I’m very sympathetic to that argument. It’s a basic due process argument. The Ripple network was operating for years before the last-minute filing of a lawsuit against them.”
Hall worked for the SEC from 2003-2005, concluding his time at the Commission as managing executive for policy, he’s now a partner at the law firm Davis Polk.
The lawyer says the SEC has a lot riding on the Ripple case, whose mission is to protect investors.
“Their entire regulatory project could be basically shut down if they lose on the merits here. And I continue to think there’s a pretty good chance that they will lose on the merits.”
He predicts that there will be appeals on the case “no matter what happens at the district court level.”
I wouldn’t be banking on a tidy resolution of this case over the course of this year. Settlement is always a possibility. That could happen out of the blue, but from an outsider’s perspective, which is all I have on it, both sides seem to pretty dug into it right now.”
