The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has formally requested that a New York court reject Coinbase’s subpoena to compel the agency to produce extensive documents related to crypto assets. The SEC described the subpoena as overly broad, seeking “essentially all documents that in any way relate to crypto assets.
In a court filing on Monday, the SEC asserted that it has been accommodating in responding to Coinbase’s requests for additional documents, including fair notice materials and files from investigations not directly related to Coinbase.
“Unsatisfied, Coinbase continued to press the SEC to conduct a sprawling search of all agency records—including all internal files and all communications with government agencies and market participants,” the SEC stated. The agency further argued that Coinbase failed to provide any legal precedent or principle to justify its “extraordinary” requests.
The SEC concluded that Coinbase’s demand for “entirely irrelevant” documents was weakly justified on the grounds that they might be related to Coinbase’s services or the application of securities laws to digital assets.
Paul Grewal, Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer, responded on social media platform X, stating, “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.”
Coinbase had also requested the court to issue a subpoena to SEC Chair Gary Gensler, seeking access to his personal emails as part of their discovery process. However, U.S. District Judge Katherine Polk Failla of New York denied this request.
The ongoing legal battle stems from the SEC’s lawsuit against Coinbase last year, accusing the company of operating as an unregistered securities exchange. The central issue is the SEC’s position that many cryptocurrencies available on Coinbase are securities, thus falling under their regulatory jurisdiction. Coinbase disputes this, asserting that most cryptocurrencies are digital commodities, not securities.
