I blogged a few months ago that the SEC and Ripple Labs settled the civil enforcement action that the Commission launched back in December 2020. The settlement of the SEC v Ripple Labs case was conditioned on the judge in the case agreeing to dissolve the permanent injunction and lower the penalty that had been aspects of the court’s July 2023 ruling against the company.

Late last week, the judge denied the parties’ request – saying that the SEC’s decision to reverse course on crypto enforcement isn’t grounds for changing a final judgment outside of the appeals process. From Reuters:

“The parties do not have the authority to agree not to be bound by a court’s final judgment that a party violated an Act of Congress in such a manner that a permanent injunction and a civil penalty were necessary to prevent that party from violating the law again,” she wrote.

“Accordingly, if jurisdiction were restored to this court, the court would deny the parties’ request to vacate the injunction and reduce the civil penalty,” she added.

Torres said the SEC and Ripple remain free to withdraw their appeals, or appeal her injunction.

The next day, Ripple’s CEO announced on X that the company plans to drop its cross-appeal in the case. This crypto saga always feels like a “never say never” situation to me, but the industry folks at Coindesk say that this means Ripple will pay the existing $125 million penalty and abide by the injunction to follow the law. I’ll look forward to final confirmation on this one.

– Liz Dunshee