Coinbase top legal officer Paul Grewal unveiled a major breakthrough for Coinbase in its ongoing battle with the SEC.
According to him, the SEC was recently ordered by the DC District Court to identify important documents that Coinbase had sought in its ETH-related FOIA case. Additionally, a formal order will be issued soon for the courts in this matter.
SEC’s Previous Stance on The Documents
The US SEC had long shown a reluctance in providing Coinbase the necessary documents that the crypto exchange had asked for in the past.
As the cryptocurrency exchange battles charges of running an unregistered securities exchange, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was retaliating against Coinbase’s requests for internal documents, calling them “irrelevant” and “excessively broad.”
This step had followed when Coinbase filed a new notice , which was intended at disclosing the SEC’s position on a number of cryptocurrencies that it has designated as securities in recent years.
Coinbase VS The SEC: What Was The Legal Battle?
In an attempt to force the Securities and Exchange Commission to take action on a rulemaking petition that Coinbase filed in 2022, the biggest cryptocurrency exchange in the United States, Coinbase, filed a lawsuit against the agency last year.
Coinbase has been engaged in a multifaceted legal battle with the SEC, including a dispute over whether insider communications about the agency’s cryptocurrency thinking should be made public, a fight over an enforcement action brought by the SEC accusing the company of operating an illegal securities business, and a petition by the company to force the agency to create regulations specifically for these industries.
These disputes may ultimately serve as a legal basis for the future development of the digital assets sector in the United States, given its importance.
The case also highlights the regulatory obstacles that crypto agencies have been facing in the US, making the entire process of functioning rather cumbersome.
In order to pursue the case further, Coinbase had hired History Associates Inc. to seek SEC communications under the Freedom of Information Act.
However, the agency initially rejected the request, stating that the documents were related to an ongoing investigation. Eventually, Coinbase’s hired agency filed a lawsuit over the denial, and History Associates was ready to ask the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to order the agency to comply. Since then, the agency has hinted that the original denial’s justification may no longer be sound.