Ripple CEO reveals he visited SEC several times before lawsuit struck

Brad Garlinghouse, the CEO of cross-border payments company Ripple (XRP), spoke during a panel discussion Monday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Garlinghouse, who also occupies a role as a member of the company’s board of directors, commented on a wide range of topics, most notably the current status of regulation in the United States versus G20 nations. 

Emphasising the prudent necessity for regulatory frameworks that serve integral principles of “clarity and certainty,” Garlinghouse stated his belief that:

“The overwhelming majority of people working within the crypto industry are good actors that want to do right by regulators. But when the rules of the road aren’t clear, it’s very difficult to manage within that.”

Later in the conversation, Garlinghouse revealed that he personally went to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) office “four or five times in the years leading up to their decision to file a lawsuit,” stating that there is no justification for legally categorizing the Ripple-associated asset XRP as a security.

Related: WEF 2022, May 23: Latest updates from the Cointelegraph Davos team

“It demonstrates how out-of-step the United States is with the G20,” Garlinghouse argued, citing Switzerland, Singapore, the United Kingdom and Japan as nations with more favorable regulatory environments for cultivating technological innovation.