“All good judges are good listeners. They are also even-handed, have the courage to do what they believe is right, speak and write clearly, are patient and respectful, and adhere to the rules of evidence and the substantive law.”

Biography:

Analisa Nadine Torres was born in 1959 and is a revered United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Nadine comes from a long line of judicial professionals. Her father, Frank Torres, served as a New York Supreme Court justice in the Bronx for many years, and her grandfather, Felipe Torres, also served in the capacity of a New York state Family Court judge.

Torres has a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University and a Juris Doctor degree from Columbia Law School. She began her career in the U.S. federal judiciary system in 2000 when she became a judge in the New York City Criminal Court. Before this, she served as a law clerk to New York Supreme Court Justice Elliott Wilk and was at one time also a city planning commissioner.

She joined the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York in April 2013 after being nominated by then U.S. President Barack Obama when Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald vacated the seat. At the time of the nomination, Torres was a justice of the Supreme Court First Judicial District of New York.

Torres’ 2022:

Judge Torres presided over a series of high-profile court cases in 2022, and a few of them were related to the cryptocurrency and blockchain industries. She presided over Ripple’s court battle with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in which the remittance network provider was accused of dealing in unregistered securities. The SEC sued the company and its management in December 2020 after accusing it of carrying out a $1.3 billion securities offering without registering with the organization. 

The case has dragged on for years and is likely to be concluded in the first half of 2023. All eyes are on Judge Torres, who is expected to make a determination on the case. Her decision on the matter is likely to impact the market.

In September 2022, she ordered the SEC to turn over documents related to a 2018 speech made by the former director of the commission’s Division of Corporate Finance, William Hinman, in which Hinman explained why Bitcoin and Ether were not categorized as securities. Ripple is looking to use this information as evidence that it didn’t break any SEC rules in the issuance of its XRP tokens to investors. The directive was a victory for Ripple, which is looking to break down the SEC’s legal argument. 

Torres’ 2023:

Judge Torres is set to make a landmark ruling in 2023 on the Ripple court case that is set to determine whether XRP is a security. In the event that Ripple is found to have issued unregistered securities to investors, a directive is likely to be issued by the judge requiring the blockchain enterprise to pay a fine for contravening SEC rules.

A negative outcome is likely to force related cryptocurrency firms to register with the SEC and abide by its statutes. Besides the Ripple case, Judge Torres is likely to continue with her judicial duties in determining other cases.