Attorneys representing American fintech company, Ripple Labs, have filed to move a consolidated class-action lawsuit initiated by XRP investors against the payments technology firm to US federal court.
Filing To Move Case To US Federal Court
Court documents released by Ripple’s lawyers on Wednesday noted that the ongoing legal dispute over XRP tokens should be shifted from the San Mateo Superior Court to the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California.
Ripple company’s defense lawyers stated that the consolidated suit fits the requirements to be presented at the higher, federal court. The court papers filed by Ripple Labs’ attorneys read in part:
Plaintiffs do not allege that they lacked information about the nature of these transactions. Nevertheless, Plaintiffs claim that they were somehow injured because the Defendants were allegedly required to register XRP as a ‘security’ with the Securities & Exchange Commission (‘SEC’) but failed to do so.
Notably, Ripple company’s consolidated class action lawsuit has combined other class-action cases against the fintech firm – including those filed by plaintiffs Vladi Zakinov, David Oconer, and Avner Greenwald.
Long List Of Defendants
In May, plaintiff Ryan Coffey had alleged that Ripple Labs created billions of XRP tokens “out of thin air” in order to make quick profits – which the lawsuit referred to as “essentially a never-ending initial coin offering” (ICO).
Although Coffey has now withdrawn his case against Ripple, the San Francisco-based firm’s attorneys have filed to have it addressed along with the case brought by Zakinov.
According to court documents, the defendants include Ripple Labs, XRP II, LLC (Ripple company’s subsidiary and “a registered and licensed money service business (MSB)”), Ripple company CEO, Bradley Garlinghouse, Ripple co-founder, Christian Larsen, chief financial officer at Ripple Labs, Ron Will, former chief compliance officer at Ripple Labs, Antoinette O’Gorman, and SVP Global Operations at Ripple, Eric van Miltenburg.
Many Board Members Involved In Lawsuit
Other notable defendants mentioned in the case include economics professor and Ripple Labs’ board of directors member, Susan Athey, former Morgan Stanley executive and Ripple Labs board member, Zoe Cruz, early Ripple investor, Ken Kurson, BitLicense architect and Ripple board member, Ben Lawsky, former US State department official and Ripple board member, Anja Manuel, CEO of SBI Ripple Asia, Takashi Okita.
Ripple company’s defense attorneys have requested to move the case to federal court because they pointed out that the consolidated lawsuit meets the requirements specified by the U.S. Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA). Specifically, there are currently over 100 members in the suing class against the fintech firm, the total amount the company is being sued for is more than $5 million, and at least one plaintiff resides in a state that is different than that of the defendant.
