Ripple and R3 have announced an end to their long running legal dispute with an undisclosed settlement finally drawing a line under a lawsuit that first became public knowledge last year.
According to a statement released by Ripple on Monday September 10, the terms of the agreement will not be disclosed following a protracted legal battle over the fate of XRP tokens that were reportedly worth as much as $19 billion at their peak.
The statement reads in part:
R3 HoldCo LLC, R3 LLC, Ripple Labs Inc. and XRP II, LLC announce that they have reached a settlement of all outstanding litigation between the parties. The terms of the agreement will remain confidential and both sides look forward to putting these disputes behind them.
Backed by a banking consortium made up of the world’s biggest banks, R3 is a blockchain development startup exploring blockchain deployment in finance and commerce. In September 2017, R3 filed a lawsuit against Ripple at the Delaware Chancery Court, alleging that Ripple violated a partnership agreement clause by failing to sell 5 billion XRP tokens to R3 at the rate of $0.0085 until the end of 2019.
Lawsuits, Counter-Suits and Accusations
The complaint was born out of the fact that Ripple’s astounding price rise – currently trading at about $0.275 – took it more than 3000 percent over the price quoted in the agreement.
This would give R3 the opportunity to make very substantial profits by purchasing a tranche of tokens worth $1.3 billion for only $42.5 million. January 2018 further saw XRP peak at $3.84, briefly achieving a total value of $19 billion for the tokens in question.
Ripple responded by filing a lawsuit in California alleging that R3 failed to fulfill certain obligations under the partnership agreement, and hence had forgone the right to receive the tokens. At press time, any details regarding the undisclosed settlement were unavailable.
