According to U.Today, Ripple's Chief Legal Officer, Stuart Alderoty, has debunked rumors of a scheduled pretrial conference with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 16. Alderoty clarified that the conference was not taking place due to Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse and co-founder Chris Larsen being cleared of all charges by the SEC. The two executives were initially accused of assisting Ripple in violating securities law. The conference date, shared by a prominent member of the XRP community, is outdated as it was set before the charges were dropped in October.
Alderoty further stated that Ripple is now expected to respond to the SEC's request for penalties by April 22. The SEC will then have until May 6 to reply to Ripple. The regulator is reportedly seeking over $2 billion in fines and penalties from Ripple. The SEC justified this large sum due to Ripple's conduct and believes that hefty fines will deter further violations of securities laws in the crypto industry.
Garlinghouse has criticized the SEC's request as regulatory overreach, while Alderoty accused the regulatory agency of attempting to intimidate his company and the wider industry. Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project, suggested that Ripple was in a precarious situation. Last year, the court ruled that XRP sales through secondary trading platforms did not constitute securities transactions. However, some analysts believe that the SEC will aggressively try to overturn this ruling.