The SEC said it had more than 100,000 documents to review before producing them for discovery.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission has requested a federal court to provide an additional four months to submit documents for a securities violation case it brought against crypto exchange Coinbase. Those documents are part of the discovery the SEC needs to bring, and according to the regulator, amounts to “hundreds of thousands of documents.”
With the current deadline set for October 18, the SEC has requested the US District Court for the Southern District of New York to push it to February 2025. As Coinbase recently won a motion to compel, the agency must provide detailed information on how it applies securities laws over crypto tokens.
The regulator told Judge Katherina Failla that it has to review about 133,582 documents and that the requested extension would help it undertake the massive workload effectively. If permitted by her, the SEC would have until February 18 to bring discovery-related documents. It may have more time to produce other documents, like deposition-related ones. Nevertheless, with a deadline of February, this case’s jury trial would only happen in 2025.
Is the SEC’s Approach to Crypto Politicized?
The SEC’s suit against Coinbase is only one of numerous against crypto exchanges and businesses. Many in the industry feel the agency is too harsh on the asset class and anyone providing services around it, often blaming it for taking an enforcement approach rather than offering guidelines they can adhere to while operating. Regarding this concern, members of the House Subcommittee on Digital Assets, Financial Technology and Inclusion met on September 18 to discuss if the SEC is taking a politicized approach toward crypto under Gary Gensler.
Beyond Coinbase, Kraken and Binance fight with the SEC to defend themselves from its securities violations allegations. Recently, Ripple settled with it for $125 million for offering and selling illegal securities.
