On Monday, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer, Paul Grewal, announced that the exchange is stepping up its legal efforts in its ongoing battle with US regulators by filing two new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
Grewal he insisted the need to get clarity on how regulatory agencies approach digital assets, saying, “In short, as long as the government doesn’t stop, neither will Coinbase.”
Coinbase Aims to Unveil Key Regulatory Connections
First of all FOIA request is seeking documents related to the digital asset deposit cap imposed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and other banking regulators on financial institutions.
The second application aims to collect the logs explaining how these agencies handle other FOIA requests. The new requests differ from previous FOIA requests made more than a year ago, which are now the subject of federal lawsuits.
Grewal’s latest post elaborated on the scope of the new applications, targeting all documents and communications between various officials. regulatory bodiesincluding the Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the FDIC, and the Federal Reserve Board.
These documents should deal with any placement of caps or restrictions on deposits from digital asset companies to depository institutions such as Signature Bank and Silvergate Bank, retroactive to June 1, 2022.
The broad definition of “documents” in the application includes a wide variety of materials, including contracts, emails, meeting minutes, and any relevant communication, with the goal of getting a broad view of how regulators are dealing with it. digital asset deposit limits.
Clarification of the application of security rules
The conflict between the exchange and US regulators also goes back to a previous FOIA request filed by History Associates on behalf of Coinbase, which the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rejected, citing. FOIA release which applies to records compiled in furtherance of legal proceedings.
Aside from the FOIA requests, Coinbase recently requested a court order to compel the SEC to produce it internal records which may shed light on the application of securities laws to digital assets.
These include documents related to Ethereum’s transition to a proof-of-stake consensus approach and investigative files regarding Enigma MPC and Zachary Coburn—both of whom have settled claims with the SEC in the past.
Despite these efforts, Coinbase expressed frustration with the SEC’s limited response, which included only three redacted pages, with the agency maintaining that other records were held under the same exemption.
History Associates, which represents Coinbase in the FOIA matter, says that under FOIA, agencies must disclose. records responded unless they can clearly demonstrate that they fall within a specific statutory exemption, in which case the administrator’s response was a request for an extension of time.
At the time of writing, shares of the exchange, COIN, are trading at $213.
Featured image from DALL-E, chart from TradingView.com