Ripple expects its legal fight against the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will eventually cost it $200 million, the company's head, Brad Garlinghouse, told CNBC on Monday.
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Garlinghouse noted people initially doubted the battle with the SEC would last so long and cost so much, as it "doesn’t make a lot of sense." He said:
"With the SEC, we will spend — this is the first time I've shared this publicly — by the time all’s said and done, we will have spent $200 million defending ourselves against a lawsuit, which from its very beginning, people were like, well, this doesn’t make a lot of sense."
The Ripple CEO also added he expects a final decision in the lawsuit to come in the next three to six months, without elaborating much on the matter.
In December 2019, the SEC sued Ripple, saying the San Francisco-based company conducted an unregistered offering of securities. The SEC says Ripple undertook the distribution of the XRP tokens without registering offers and sales of XRP with the SEC.
Ripple in turn says the SEC's suit is an attack on the "entire crypto industry" in the US. The company highlights there's always a "dangerous lack of regulatory clarity" for the market in the US.
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