Empower Oversight has appealed SEC’s claim of “no responsive records” on its cryptocurrency Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The nonprofit, nonpartisan educational organization dedicated to enhancing independent oversight of government and corporate wrongdoing has not let go of the case on suspicions of improper conduct by the SEC officials when filing the complaint against Ripple Labs.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST?
There may have been conflicts of interest with cryptocurrencies at the SEC, where some cryptocurrencies may have been promoted over others.
To that effect, Empower Oversigh seeks communications between SEC officials and their current and former employers amid the turbulent lawsuit against Ripple and its individual defendants.
Empower Oversight has today filed an administrative appeal challenging the SEC’s claim that “no responsive records exist” in several categories of the FOIA request.
In addition, the organization states that the SEC’s claim that it “conducted a thorough search of the SEC’s various system of records” regarding conflicts of interest with cryptocurrencies is unsupported.
The SEC failed to describe the scope of its searches, the non-profit continued, addint that the public cannot be assured that the SEC took reasonable steps to locate and produce responsive documents.
Empower Oversight first filed the FOIA request in August 2021. This led to a denial of a fee waiver, which was quickly appealed and overturned.
The SEC ignored the request and the organization filed a lawsuit to compel the SEC to comply with its FOIA requests. The litigation remains pending and the SEC’s response is due February 11, 2022.
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