- The SEC formally closed its case towards Ripple in August 2025, withholding a $125 million tremendous.
- Authorized specialists say the doctrine of res judicata prevents the SEC from suing Ripple once more with the identical claims.
- A US court docket dominated that XRP itself will not be a safety, limiting future SEC discussions.
Current stories out of Washington have raised new questions on whether or not the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) can reopen its case towards Ripple. The quick reply from authorized specialists is, “No, it is not the identical drawback.”
Lawmakers query SEC crypto enforcement
In a letter dated January 15, 2026, a number of Home Democrats criticized U.S. Securities and Trade Fee Chairman Paul Atkins for scaling again crypto enforcement.
Lawmakers stated the SEC has dismissed or suspended greater than a dozen main crypto lawsuits since 2025, together with circumstances involving Ripple Labs, Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken. They warned that political donations from cryptocurrency executives with ties to President Donald Trump might give the impression of a “pay-to-play” system.
Ripple incident attracts consideration once more
Among the many circumstances talked about was the SEC’s long-running lawsuit towards Ripple. The case largely concluded in 2023, with a federal choose ruling that XRP itself will not be a safety, drawing an vital distinction between various kinds of XRP gross sales. In August 2025, the SEC introduced that it had closed its case towards Ripple Labs and deferred a $125 million tremendous.
Current political strain on the SEC has some traders questioning whether or not the SEC would possibly attempt once more.
Why cannot the Ripple incident be restarted?
Authorized professional Invoice Morgan says the reply is obvious: the SEC can not re-litigate the Ripple case on the identical grounds.
Morgan pointed to a authorized precept referred to as res judicata, which prohibits the identical events from reopening the case after a remaining judgment has been rendered. He defined that as a result of courts have already dominated on whether or not XRP itself is a safety, the SEC is prevented from elevating that argument once more.
“The SEC misplaced loads of time on this difficulty,” Morgan stated, including that the company didn’t even problem the discovering that XRP itself was not an funding contract when it appealed components of the ruling.
what nonetheless occurs
Though the SEC can not reopen allegations associated to Ripple’s gross sales of XRP from 2013 to 2020, Morgan stated the SEC might nonetheless file new lawsuits centered on future gross sales of XRP, however provided that new details come to mild. Nonetheless, earlier court docket selections will severely restrict what the SEC can declare.
For now, the core of the SEC vs. Ripple battle is legally over, regardless of the political noise and new scrutiny of the withdrawn crypto lawsuit.
Associated: Ripple, College of California, Berkeley launch blockchain accelerator centered on XRP ledger venture
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