Coinbase has filed a response in support of its petition for a writ of mandamus to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in its latest move seeking clear regulations for digital assets. Coinbase’s Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal referred to the mandamus as ‘a tailored remedy for extraordinary circumstances’.
Coinbase submitted a petition to the SEC in July requesting the Commission to propose and adopt rules governing the regulation of securities offered and traded through digital native methods, including potential rules for determining digital assets as securities. The agency was given 50 questions to consider when formulating the rules.
In Coinbase’s filing on May 22, it was claimed that the agency made a decision to deny Coinbase’s request in July but did not publish that decision. Furthermore, the SEC’s inaction is reportedly part of a larger pattern.
– The SEC does not dispute that it has received five petitions for rulemaking related to digital assets since 2017 and has not acted on any of them – states Coinbase.
Coinbase and the SEC have presented arguments regarding the appropriate response time for rulemaking, even with the mandamus solution. Coinbase argued in its new filing that its case is different from others.
– However, the SEC has not cited, and Coinbase has not found, any case in which a court has approved even a multi-month delay when the agency was actively enforcing laws on the same subjects of the rulemaking petitions, let alone when the agency threatened litigation against the very petitioner bringing the rulemaking – emphasizes Coinbase.
