Since institutional investors are by definition acredited, so it was OK for Ripple Labs Inc to sell securities to them.
Also, the court decision completely ignores the fact that so called "exchanges" are by themselves are illegal (or unregulated in the best case), and act as Broker/Dealers.
Since these platforms are unregulated, it's impossible to know how their orderbooks operated, and what was the amount of the wash trading there.
The same logic applies to almost any financial contract or security trading on the real exchanges (except IPOs).
It's more like a corporate and big bank coin/scam I'd say. Some of those who're invested: Google, a16z, Banco Santander, Standard Chartered