The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has dismissed Ripple Labs' latest attempt to reduce the proposed fine. The company had argued that the SEC's settlement with Terraform Labs, which included a $420 million civil penalty, was a suitable benchmark for its own penalty. However, the SEC disagreed, stating that the comparison was not valid.

Ripple had cited the Terraform settlement as a basis for its request for a fine of no more than $10 million. However, the SEC countered that the Terraform settlement was made under unique circumstances, including the firm's bankruptcy and agreement to return money to investors. In contrast, Ripple has not agreed to any such relief.

The SEC also pointed out that Ripple's argument that the Terraform penalty was a small percentage of the firm's gross sales was not a fair comparison. Instead, the SEC measured the Terraform penalty against the gross profit of the violative conduct, which was over $3.5 billion. This resulted in a penalty ratio of nearly 12%. Applying the same ratio to Ripple's gross profits, the SEC proposed a civil penalty of $102.6 million.

The SEC's proposed penalties for Ripple total nearly $2 billion, including $198.2 million in prejudgment interest, $876.3 million in civil penalty, and another $876.3 million in disgorgement. The regulator argued that a lower penalty would not serve the purposes of the civil penalty statutes.

The dispute between the SEC and Ripple has been ongoing since 2020, after the SEC accused Ripple of selling unregistered securities. Although Judge Analisa Torres agreed that Ripple did sell unregistered securities, she limited the scope of the securities to those sold to institutional investors. Last month, the SEC objected to Ripple's bid to seal some of its financial records, arguing that the firm should disclose the revenue it made from XRP sales that were deemed unregistered.