Renowned crypto lawyer Bill Morgan has highlighted the SEC’s limitations in pursuing regulatory enforcement. In a recent post on X, Morgan noted that the agency’s budget is less than its chairperson’s request. Yet, it has to spend such resources on discovering documents requested by Coinbase and Ripple instead of opting for a settlement.
It must suck as a regulator when your budget is less than the chairperson requests and companies like @Coinbase and @ripple make you expend such resources 👇 in discovery of documents instead of being cowed into a settlement.
If only there was more clarity and such enforcement… https://t.co/SkY97gnc41 pic.twitter.com/GI436KXvE1
— bill morgan (@Belisarius2020) August 6, 2024
In his post, Morgan cited a section of the court filing showing Coinbase’s request for the SEC to produce all documents relating to crypto assets. Following this, the SEC produced all the non-privileged documents it gathered while investigating its case against the crypto exchange. The filing shows the SEC gathered over 240,000 documents concerning the crypto assets involved in its case against Coinbase.
Per Coinbase request, the crypto exchange’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal noted the SEC has responded to their request. He described the documents to be produced by the regulator as “important,” believing they would expose the commission’s inconsistent views on digital assets and regulatory reach.
Grewal demanded transparency from the SEC as a minimum requirement to carry out the functions it has set out to do. He noted:
“If the SEC is going to engage in an unprecedented regulation by enforcement campaign, the least they owe to those they target–and the public–is transparency.”
On July 23, Ripple requested the court to order the SEC to produce important documents in discovery, including those related to the tokens the commission included in its original complaint. Coinbase also requested the SEC to produce documents relating to its consideration of the crypto exchange’s public offering and statements linked to the SEC chair, Gary Gensler, in his personal and professional capacity during his tenure as the commission’s head.
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