Clayton blasted current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler for his handling of proceedings.
The former SEC chairman departed the SEC days after the Ripple case was filed.
When it comes to debates over corporate lawsuits and the US SEC’s role, Brad Garlinghouse, CEO of Ripple, has been vocal in his criticism of Jay Clayton, the previous chairman of the SEC.
The CEO of Ripple recalls that Jay Clayton was the one who first filed the lawsuit that his company fought for over three years in response to a CNBC roundtable conversation with Jay Clayton that was posted by Cameron Winklevoss, CEO of Gemini.
High-profile Legal Battle
The fact that Clayton departed the SEC days after the Ripple case was filed was a big cause for worry for Garlinghouse. In an interview with CNBC, Clayton blasted current SEC Chairman Gary Gensler for his handling of enforcement proceedings against cryptocurrency businesses as an abuse of authority.
Clayton told CNBC on June 29, 2023 that the US SEC could sue firms individually if it had a strong legal case to do so. He elaborated on how regulatory bodies should only provide rules and instances that they are certain would be upheld in court.
Since taking over the SEC, Gary Gensler has been targeting the crypto firms. The regulator has targeted not just Kraken but also crypto exchange Coinbase and Binance on the grounds that they enabled the trade of unregistered crypto assets.
Despite the SEC’s high-profile lawsuits under Gary Gensler, Clayton’s action against Ripple Labs is widely regarded as the industry’s most high-profile legal battle in recent memory. The payments company didn’t get its first big victory until July, when Judge Analisa Torres ruled that XRP’s programmatic sales are not investment contracts.