WASHINGTON — Empower Oversight received just under 200 pages of emails from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) responsive to its FOIA request for records that could shed light on allegations of conflicts of interest associated with the SEC’s selective enforcement actions involving cryptocurrencies. This comes on the heels of over a thousand pages of documents that the SEC released to Empower Oversight in February.
Among other things, the documents show that the SEC ethics office cautioned former SEC official William Hinman that he had a direct financial interest in Simpson Thacher, and thus, he must recuse himself from any matters that would affect the firm. Additionally, the ethics office explicitly told Hinman, per the documents, to not be in any contact with Simpson Thacher for any reason. However, Hinman met with Josh Bonnie, a partner at Simpson Thacher, at least three times after that warning. Hinman also met with the co-founders and investors in Ethereum ahead of a market-moving speech he gave in 2018 declaring the digital asset Ether to not be a security, despite Simpson Thacher’s participation in the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance, which is dedicated to promoting the commercial use of Ethereum. This raises questions as to whether Hinman fully disclosed Simpson Thacher’s role in Ethereum from SEC ethics officials and whether they would have approved the meetings or his speech if he had.
“The latest documents provided by the SEC raise more questions than they answer. We will continue to press the SEC for more meaningful and more timely transparency on this issue,” said Jason Foster, Empower Oversight Founder and President.
