Empower Oversight, a watchdog agency, is taking the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to court over Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests that have yet to be fulfilled.
The lawsuit seeks to compel the SEC to provide Empower with requested records that could shed light on potential conflicts of interest related to cryptocurrency, specifically involving former SEC officials William Hinman and Jay Clayton.
Hinman, who is now a senior adviser at the law firm Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, received a pension from the firm while at the SEC, which was an Enterprise Ethereum Alliance member during his tenure.
Clayton, who was SEC Chair from 2017 to 2020, joined cryptocurrency hedge fund One River Asset Management after leaving his post at the SEC.
The lawsuit alleges that the requested records will reveal whether there were multiple conflicts of interest that were crypto-related.
Empower has previously taken the SEC to court over FOIA requests and is seeking to compel the SEC to conduct “legally sufficient searches” to fulfill its requests.
