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.
