XRP Lawsuit: Brad Garlinghouse Appoints New Defense Counsel

In what comes as a surprising twist in the ongoing XRP Lawsuit, Ripple Labs CEO, Brad Garlinghouse has landed a new defense attorney who filed a notice of appearance in court earlier today.

Ripple Lawsuit: Consistency in Attorney Representations

According to the filing submitted to the court, Rahul Mukhi of the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP will now be appearing specifically for Brad Garlinghouse. 

Despite the lawsuit tying the duo of Garlinghouse and Ripple Labs founder, Chris Larsen, Mukhi was designated for the former, a positioning that has now sent shockwaves to the broader crypto ecosystem on what the unique representation moves might entail.

Away from the many assumptions in the ecosystem, the XRP lawsuit has indeed seen a lot of shift in attorney representations both on the part of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Ripple Labs, or any of the defendants named in the legal brawl. 

As reported earlier by Coingape, two of the lawyers representing the markets regulator Richard Best And Robert Moye left the team back in August, creating a representation gap that might be filled in soon. Notably, this exodus of lawyers is also peculiar to Ripple, and rather than fuel concerns, the company has allayed all fears, noting that the exit of some of its lawyers will not impact its argument regarding the status of XRP.

Rahul Mukhi is known as one of the top lawyers with awards to his name for his work in complex litigation, as well as enforcement and investigations. While industry experts have posited that Garlinghouse and Larsen are being unnecessarily sued by the market regulator, the presence of Mukhi in the former’s defense team might solidified his case altogether.

Potential Outcome of the Lawsuit

Many in the digital currency ecosystem are expecting that the verdict in the case the SEC has against Brad Garlinghouse and Chris Larsen will be dismissed seeing Judge Analisa Torres has ruled that the trading of XRP coin on secondary marketplaces does not constitute securities.

However the case is bound to shape up, the expectation is that the Ripple executives will either come out unscathed or with minimal order to pay some amount in civil penalties for the institutional sales part the current ruling noted are investment contracts.