Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has said that the fintech firm is unlikely to settle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the regulator’s lawsuit against it and two executives, which alleges they “raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered, ongoing digital asset securities offering.” 

At a fireside chat in Davos with CNBC, Garlinghouse said that a settlement could only be possible if the SEC clarified $XRP isn’t a security. The CEO said that the problem in the case is that the SEC, under its current Chairman Gary Gensler, has “articulated a view that all crypto is a security.”

To Ripple’s CEO, a ruling on the lawsuit could be delivered this year, as the firm expects a decision “certainly in 2023.” He added that it’s impossible to “have any control over when a judge makes their decisions,” but is optimistic that a decision will come “sometime in the coming single-digit number of months.”