A judge is partially granting a motion by Coinbase that would force the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to produce critical documents.
Last month, Coinbase filed the motion to procure the documents related to its previous communication with crypto issuers because they believe the regulatory body’s enforcement actions have been inconsistent.
The SEC first sued Coinbase in June 2023, alleging that the top US-based crypto exchange violated several securities laws, including selling unregistered securities.
About a year later, Coinbase filed a countersuit, claiming the SEC is attempting to cripple the digital assets industry by operating outside of its jurisdiction.
Earlier this week, Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal noted that the judge in the case both partially granted and denied the crypto exchange’s motion to compel the SEC to produce key documents, citing the regulator’s recent case against Ripple Labs.
“As [the Judge] noted, in allowing analogous discovery in the Ripple litigation, this quantum of discovery is reasonable for an incredibly high stakes, high-value litigation.”
The judge granted Coinbase’s request, albeit on a limited basis, according to court transcripts.
“I am granting that motion to compel production or logging of this information subject to the provisos I’ve just described; limits on custodians, limits on the production of purely intra-agency communications, and an expectation that the parties can agree on a limited number of search terms to run through the accounts of a limited number of the limited number of custodians.”
In a thread on the social media platform X, Grewal thanks the court for ordering the SEC to procure evidence.
“Today Judge Failla ruled from the bench on our motion to compel SEC to provide key information for the defense of our case. In short, the Court ordered the SEC to produce important discovery…We thank the Court for its careful consideration.”