Matthew C. Solomon is a Partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, a law firm that represented Ripple Labs Inc. He was one of the attorneys who successfully represented Ripple and its executives in the legal battle against the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). ^[1][2]

Career

Matt Solomon began his law career as a Law clerk at The Hon. Dennis Jacobs -- U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit from 1999 to 2001. In 2002 he served as a Trial Attorney at the DOJ Public Integrity Section until 2007. In 2008, he was an Assistant U.S. Attorney and then a Fraud Unit Chief at the United States Attorney's Office until 2012. ^[1]

In June 2012, Matt joined the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as a Deputy Chief Litigation Counsel and then was promoted to Chief Litigation Counsel in 2013. ^[1]

Cleary Gottlieb

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP (Cleary Gottlieb) is an American multinational law firm headquartered at One Liberty Plaza in New York City. Cleary Gottlieb is the law firm that successfully represented Ripple's CEO Brad Garlinghouse's case against the SEC. ^[3]

In 2017, Matt Solomon joined Cleary as a Partner of the organization. Matt represents global financial institutions, public and private companies (foreign and domestic), private equity firms, asset managers, and individual corporate executives and employees on a broad range of issues and disputes spanning from regulatory compliance and remediation advice to advocacy and litigation against the government and private parties. Matt leverages his high-level government experience as a federal prosecutor and supervisor and as an SEC enforcement official to vigorously represent his client’s interests before criminal and regulatory authorities, including the SEC, DOJ, CFTC, FINRA, and State Attorneys General. ^[2]

Cleary Gottlieb & Ripple v. SEC

In December 2020, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed an action against Ripple Labs Inc. and two of its executives, who are also significant security holders, alleging that they raised over $1.3 billion through an unregistered digital asset securities offering. The complaint alleged that Ripple raised funds, beginning in 2013, through the sale of digital assets known as XRP in an unregistered securities offering to investors in the U.S. and worldwide. ^[4]

Cleary Gottlieb alongside Matt Solomon represented Ripple's CEO Brad Garlinghouse in successfully obtaining the dismissal with prejudice of the claim by the SEC that he aided and abetted certain of Ripple’s offers and sales of XRP, the native digital asset of the XRP Ledger, a public blockchain. ^[5]

By dismissing this claim, the SEC abandoned a trial that was slated to begin in April 2024. This follows Mr. Garlinghouse’s successful summary judgment motion with the Court dismissing all of the primary liability claims against him. He now has the full dismissal of all of the SEC’s claims against him.^[5]

On July 13, 2023, Judge Analisa Torres of the Southern District of New York granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment as to all of Mr. Garlinghouse’s personal sales of XRP and Ripple’s “programmatic” sales of XRP on digital asset exchanges. The Court also denied the SEC’s motion for summary judgment against Mr. Garlinghouse on the aiding and abetting claim, setting up a highly anticipated trial on this claim for April 2024. On October 3, 2023, the Court denied the SEC’s motion for leave to appeal and to stay the trial. ^[5]

On October 19, 2023, rather than attempting to prove its claims at trial, the SEC voluntarily dismissed the sole remaining claim against Mr. Garlinghouse. All claims against Mr. Garlinghouse have now been dismissed, resulting in a victory for an individual defendant over the SEC in a litigated case. ^[5]

Publications

• “Takeaways From DOJ’s Novel Insider Trading Indictment,” (co-authored with Adam E. Fleisher, Tom Bednar, and Sarah Choi), Law360, April 11, 2023. ^[6]

• “DOJ and SEC Charge Healthcare Executive With Insider Trading Through a Rule 10b5-1 Trading Plan, Marking DOJ’s First Such Indictment,” (co-authored with Adam E. Fleisher, Tom Bednar, and Sarah Choi), Cleary Enforcement Watch blog post, March 8, 2023. ^[7]

• “U.S. SEC Enforcement 2022 Year in Review,” (co-authored with Robin M. Bergen, Tom Bednar, Alexander Janghorbani, and Meghan A. Leibold), December 5, 2022. ^[8]

• “Implications Of SEC’s Latest Insider Trading Charges,” (co-authored with Tom Bednar and Sarah Choi), Law360, September 30, 2022. ^[9]

• “Lessons From the SEC’s Largest-Ever Audit Firm Penalty,” (co-authored with Lisa Vicens and Tom Bednar), Law360, July 13, 2022. ^[10]

• “5th Circuit Decision Further Undermines Use of Administrative Courts for SEC Enforcement Actions and Provides Fresh Ammunition to SEC Rulemaking Challenges,” (co-authored with Tom Bednar, Alexander Janghorbani, and Jackie Brune), Westlaw Today, June 17, 2022. ^[11]

• “SEC Nearly Doubles Size of Digital Asset Enforcement Team,” (co-authored with David Lopez, Tom Bednar, Alexander Janghorbani, and Samuel Levander), Cleary Cybersecurity and Privacy Watch blog post, May 4, 2022. ^[12]

• “SEC’s “Shadow Trading” Insider Trading Case Allowed to Proceed,” (co-authored with Adam E. Fleisher, Robin Bergen, Daniel Montgomery, and Tom Standifer), Cleary Enforcement Watch blog post, January 24, 2022. ^[13]

• “2021 Developments in Securities and M&A Litigation,” (co-authored with Joon H. Kim, Victor L. Hou, Roger A. Cooper, Lisa Vicens, Jared Gerber, Rishi N. Zutshi, Nowell D. Bamberger, Abena Mainoo, Rahul Mukhi, Lina Bensman, Mark E. McDonald, Alexander Janghorbani, Anthony M. Shults, Avion A. Tai, and Chelsea Hanlock), Cleary Gottlieb Alert Memorandum, January 18, 2022. ^[14]