Ripple Hires a New General Counsel
Just recently, Ripple has announced that it hired a new general counsel. The latter would reportedly fill a position that had been vacant for a good number of months. Here is everything the news in a nutshell.
Introducing the New General Counsel
Revealed on Wednesday, Stuart Alderoty is tasked to oversee all legal work at the company. More importantly, he will be in charge of managing its global legal policy and the compliance teams responsible for the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA). He will directly report to Brad Garlinghouse, the company’s very own CEO.
Alderoty joined the firm from the CIT Group, which is one of the top 50 banks in the United States and commercial lender. In the group, he is believed to have held the jobs the executive vice president, corporate secretary, and general counsel/chief legal officer – all of these he had accomplished since 2016.
The new general counsel was expert in overseeing legal matters, including those that cover insurance risk and corporate governance. Prior to the joining CIT, he was once an executive in both American Express and HSBC, after 17 years of working as an attorney.
He will now succeed the former general counsel of Ripple named Brynly Llyr. The latter left the firm sometime in September in order to join the digital currency payments startup called Celo.
A Busy Legal Team
Alderoty’s onboarding comes at a time when the company is in the middle of battling a consolidated class action courtesy of investors who claim they have lost money on XRP. The latter, in particular, is a digital currency associated directly with the company. From there, they accused the startup of selling the cryptos as unregistered security.
The lawsuit, according to the original filing, combines a good number of class-action lawsuits courtesy of plaintiffs David Oconer, Avner Greenwald, and Vladi Zakinov. They are naming Ripple Labs, including its subsidiary XRP II, the CEO, and a couple of executives and directors as the defendants. Sometime in November, the lawsuit was put forward to a federal court through the defendants’ motion.
Just last fall, Ripple began a lobbying group situated in Washington D.C. and are called the Securing America’s Internet of Value Coalition or SAIV. The goal is to basically influence the very regulation of the cryptocurrency world.
Also September last year, the company decided to settle a two-year-old legal dispute against R3 over part of the partnership agreement. This refers to the alliance the two companies both signed in 2016.