R3, Ripple Settle Legal Dispute Over XRP Purchase Option

Blockchain startups Ripple and R3 have resolved a legal battle that saw both firms filing suits over a contract dispute.

A representative from R3 confirmed the settlement to CoinDesk in an email, saying:

"R3 HoldCo LLC, R3 LLC, Ripple Labs Inc. and XRP II, LLC announce that they have reached a settlement of all outstanding litigation between the parties. The terms of the agreement will remain confidential and both sides look forward to putting these disputes behind them."

The spat went public just over a year ago, when it was reported by Reuters that R3 had filed a complaint at the Delaware Chancery Court alleging Ripple had not honored an agreement that included an option for it to purchase 5 billion XRP, the open-source cryptocurrency of Ripple's distributed ledger network.

R3 asked the Delaware Chancery Court to force Ripple to uphold the deal, which would have allowed it to buy the XRP at a price of $0.0085 per token at any time before September 2019. At press time, the price of XRP is $0.26, according to CoinDesk's Market Center.

In Ripple's counter case at the Supreme Court in California, the firm claimed that the two had agreed a deal for a joint commercial venture, alleging R3 had not stuck to its end of the bargain.

Ripple further alleged that R3 had concealed the fact that some of its consortium members, including Goldman Sachs and Banco Santander, were looking to leave the group despite promises they would work to promote the use case for XRP within their respective companies.

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