Jury trial dates set for next year in long-winded Ripple case

Dates are beginning to be set for a jury trial in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Ripple Labs. 

The court is planning to schedule a jury trial for the second quarter of next year in the Southern District of New York, Judge Analisa Torres said on Tuesday in a pretrial scheduling order. 

The SEC and Ripple will have until Dec. 4 of this year to submit motions in limine, meaning a pretrial motion asking that certain evidence be inadmissible so that it not be offered at trial, according to Cornell Law School. They also have to submit dates that they won’t be available by Aug. 23. 

Torres ordered a trial by jury last month for Ripple’s CEO Brad Garlinghouse and Executive Chairman Chris Larsen over whether they are liable in illegal securities sales to institutional investors who bought hundreds of millions of dollars worth of XRP.

Torres ruled last month that some of Ripple’s sales of XRP did not violate securities laws because of a blind bid process in place for them, so buyers did not know the sales benefited Ripple. She also ruled that other direct sales of the token to institutional investors were securities. 

A long winded fight

The SEC and Ripple have been embroiled in a legal fight since 2020, when the agency accused Ripple of raising $1.3 billion in 2020 through the sale of XRP, which it says is an unregistered security, while also charging Garlinghouse and Larsen. 

Both sides could appeal Torres' ruling.