Observers will soon see some inaccessible documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) case against Binance. These documents are sealed or redacted at the request of the SEC and unsealed at the request of the SEC itself.
District Judge Zia Faruqui of the District Court for the District of Columbia issued an order on September 15 granting the SEC’s motion to unseal or delete the redactions in the documents. The order lists 18 sealed documents and nine additional documents that are partially sealed or redacted.
Binance and “any non-party claiming confidentiality designation of documents related to the SEC’s compulsory motion” will be able to object to the unsealing within seven days, and the SEC will have seven days to respond to those claims.
Late at night, the SEC’s filings in the Binance case were largely redacted and sealed, but it appears the SEC is rebutting a wealth of evidence and testimony against some of the claims made by Binance. It’s a bit of a slippery slope compared to what we’ve seen so far.
Not sure if there’s any connection to the weird Chinese OTC… pic.twitter.com/rq5oeXycdE
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) September 15, 2023
All sealed documents, filed with docket number. Document 102 was filed on August 28th. There was speculation at the time that they were related to the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into Binance. The partially sealed document totals 117 pages. These include internal Binance.US documents, emails and SEC court documents, including a memorandum filed on September 14 regarding Binance.US’s compliance with SEC discovery efforts.
Related: Binance.US not cooperating with investigation, SEC says in filing
The list in Farooqui’s order does not include all sealed documents filed in the case. The proposed order filed by Binance.US holding company BAM on September 11, along with the SEC’s opposition documents and eight exhibits, were filed under seal and were not mentioned in the order.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s case against Binance.US, Binance and its CEO Changpeng Zhao was launched in June and involves allegations of unregistered securities operations and other misconduct, including wash sales. Binance.US applied for a protective order from the SEC in August.
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