Ripple's legal counsel, Stuart Alderoty, has refuted false claims circulating on social media regarding a pretrial with the Securities and Exchange Commission scheduled for April 16th, clarifying that no such event is planned.

He explained that Ripple's CEO, Brad Garlinghouse, and Co-Founder, Chris Larsen, have been cleared of all SEC charges related to alleged collusion regarding securities rule breaches. Alderoty emphasized that the matter referenced by a member of the XRP community pertains to past events before the charges were dismissed in October.

Ripple is now preparing a responsive statement against the SEC's request for penalties, due by April 22nd, while the SEC must respond to Ripple by May 6th. Recent updates indicate that the SEC is seeking over $2 billion in fines from Ripple, justifying the amount as a deterrent against future securities rule violations in the cryptocurrency space.

Garlinghouse criticized the SEC's request, alleging misrepresentation of the case, with Alderoty accusing the SEC of attempting to intimidate Ripple. Legal experts, such as Lee Hepner from the American Economic Liberties Project, view the situation as highly contentious for Ripple.

Despite a previous court ruling that XRP sales via secondary trading platforms did not constitute securities transactions, some analysts anticipate the SEC's efforts to challenge this ruling.