SEC pays $150,000 as Coinbase-backed Freedom Of Information Act settlement releases two withheld documents

The SEC will pay $150,000 in legal fees and review how it preserves records as part of a July 22 settlement ending a Coinbase-backed public-records lawsuit.History Associates, the company working with Coinbase, filed the lawsuit on June 27, 2024. The case closed with a deal before a judge ever weighed the SEC’s conduct. The public record includes no admission of wrongdoing. Coinbase chief legal officer Paul Grewal called the outcome a win for transparency.The detailed scope of the retention work remains unclear. Reuters described the commitment as fixing records-retention policies, while Law360 reported that the agency would share its document-retention policies.The SEC must also release two documents it previously withheld and review its records and text-message preservation. What those documents contain and when they must be released have not been publicly established.Why the preservation review mattersThe two documents are just one piece of the story. Public-records requests depend on agencies keeping the messages people may later ask to see.In September 2025, the SEC's inspector general found that avoidable device-management errors caused the loss of former Chair Gary Gensler's...