Coinbase "U.S. SEC deleted a year's worth of Gensler's texts... requested emergency relief in court"

Coinbase has reportedly filed for emergency relief in federal court regarding allegations that former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler deleted text messages.

On the 12th (local time), according to crypto-focused media The Block, Coinbase argued in a court filing that "the SEC deleted a year's worth of then-Chairman Gensler's text messages" and "this is a serious impairment of public trust."

Paul Grewal, Coinbase's Chief Legal Officer (CLO), emphasized on X (formerly Twitter) that "it has been revealed that the SEC destroyed documents it was obligated to preserve and produce," and that "the court must correct this violation and ensure it does not recur."

According to a report from the Office of the Inspector General, the SEC permanently deleted about one year's worth of text messages when it reset Chairman Gensler's mobile phone under a new policy in September 2023. This period overlapped with the collapse of FTX and the SEC's ramped-up enforcement targeting crypto exchanges such as Coinbase. The Inspector General noted that although the SEC could have preserved the text messages, an IT staffer performed a factory reset and the data was completely lost.

Grewal said, "We have for years requested 'all communications' within the SEC related to crypto regulation and enforcement," and "this is a serious breach of public trust, and we ask the court for prompt disclosure of evidence, sanctions, and the immediate production of all related materials."

Meanwhile, the SEC has not yet commented.