The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has requested additional time for discovery in its lawsuit against Coinbase.

This becomes apparent from documents filed by the regulator at the New York Southern District Court on September 18, 2024.

The SEC seeks an extension of the deadline to complete fact discovery by four months from October 18, 2024 to February 18, 2025, and to amend the previously-entered Civil Case Management Plan and Scheduling Order.

Coinbase, Inc. and Coinbase Global, Inc. consent to the requested extension.

The SEC said that its discovery efforts in this action have been extensive, including producing hundreds of thousands of documents to the defendants.

In ruling on a recent motion to compel by the defendants, the Court ordered the SEC to undertake a review of additional documents.

Since then, as ordered by the Court, the parties conferred and have reached an agreement in principle concerning the search terms and custodians for the SEC’s search and review of potentially responsive material. Pursuant to that agreement, the SEC is undertaking a review of at least 133,582 unique documents.

The requested extension will provide the SEC the necessary time to comply with the Court’s Order.

Let’s recall that the SEC filed charges against Coinbase in June 2023. The regulator accused Coinbase of operating its crypto asset trading platform as an unregistered national securities exchange, broker, and clearing agency.

The SEC also charged Coinbase for failing to register the offer and sale of its crypto asset staking-as-a-service program.