SEC Requests Additional Four Months to Submit Documents in Coinbase Case

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has requested an additional four months to produce documents in the legal tussle with Coinbase. In
a recent filing with the US District Court for the Southern District of New
York, the regulator argued that it requires more time to review an extensive
collection of 133,582 documents.

The extension, if granted by Judge Katherine Failla,
could push the document production deadline to February 2025,
potentially delaying any courtroom proceedings until next year, Cointelegraph
reported.

More Time to Review Thousands of Documents

Initially scheduled to produce documents by October
18, the SEC has argued that reviewing the extensive collection of documents
requires more time. This request, filed on September 18, aims to extend the
deadline for fact discovery to February 18, 2025, with expert discovery
potentially concluding by April 22, 2025.

The ongoing legal battles involving the SEC and major
crypto exchanges like Coinbase, Binance, and Kraken are part of a broader
regulatory scrutiny of digital assets. Recent rulings against Ripple Labs and Terraform Labs
highlight the regulator’s aggressive stance on unregistered securities.

Early this year, a federal judge in Manhattan allowed the SEC to continue with its lawsuit against Coinbase despite dismissing one of
the regulator’s claims. Judge Failla partly granted Coinbase’s motion to
dismiss the SEC’s lawsuit, which accused the company of violating securities
regulations.

Coinbase Faces Regulatory Uncertainty

Despite this partial win, the ruling aligned with the
securities regulator’s approach to regulating cryptocurrency. The SEC charged the crypto exchange in June last year, alleging that the
exchange facilitated the trading of several crypto tokens that should have been
registered as securities.

The watchdog also accused Coinbase of operating as a national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency without the required registrations. In its defense, Coinbase accused the SEC of denying
the exchange’s petition to make proper rules for the industry. Subsequently,
Coinbase filed lawsuits against the SEC and the Federal Deposit Insurance
Corporation.

The renowned crypto exchange accused the regulators
of failing to provide requested information under the FOIA, impacting
transparency in regulatory dealings. Coinbase also accused the federal agencies of attempting to marginalize the cryptocurrency industry within the
banking sector.

This article was written by Jared Kirui at www.financemagnates.com.
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