US SEC settles FOIA lawsuit with Coinbase over lost messages, WSJ op-ed says
The deal ends Coinbase’s FOIA suit and requires the regulator to change how it preserves official communications after a review found preventable errors.
- On Wednesday, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal announced that the cryptocurrency exchange settled its Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, with the agency agreeing to pay $150,000.
- Grewal wrote that the regulator lost text messages between former SEC Chair Gary Gensler and other officials, attributing the data loss to a process that "automatically wiped" certain information. The agency had failed to produce these records during litigation.
- A September 2025 review by the SEC Office of Inspector General found that avoidable errors, including a factory reset on Gensler's agency-issued iPhone on Sept. 6, 2023, caused the permanent deletion of messages. The report concluded timely backups could have prevented the loss.
- Coinbase had sought these documents to investigate how senior officials handled crypto regulatory and enforcement decisions. Grewal accused the former SEC leadership of violating public obligations by destroying materials it was required to preserve.
- Under President Donald Trump, the SEC dismissed a major enforcement case against Coinbase in February 2025 without requiring fines or business changes. The commission is now developing industry-friendly policies for tokenized securities and digital-asset products.
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31 Articles
SEC Agrees to Pay $150,000 to End Coinbase Suit Over Records
Gary Gensler’s erased texts cost SEC $150K in Coinbase case
Coinbase has secured a $150,000 settlement from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after the regulator lost nearly 11 months of former Chair Gary Gensler’s text messages. A Wall Street Journal op-ed written by Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal…
US SEC settles FOIA lawsuit with Coinbase over lost messages, WSJ op-ed says
Coinbase has settled a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over records it sought from the agency, the cryptocurrency exchange's chief legal officer, Paul Grewal, said in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on Wednesday.
SEC Settles FOIA Lawsuit with Coinbase Over Missing Records - The Cryptocurrency Post
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has reached a settlement to resolve a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit involving missing internal records and communications. According to a joint status report filed on July 22 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the federal regulator has agreed to pay $150,000 in legal fees and produce remaining documents sought by the plaintiffs. The legal challenge was initiated in Ju…
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