Tether, Bitfinex agree to drop opposition to FOIL request

Tether and Bitfinex have jointly agreed to drop initial opposition to a freedom of information (FOIL) request lodged in New York by a number of high-profile news publications.

A statement from the USDT stablecoin issuer and cryptocurrency exchange shared with Cointelegraph notes that it is committed to transparently sharing information following a FOIL request from Coindesk earlier this year.

The companies also indicated that they would not be openly releasing documentation, claiming that the approach is not in line with its business practices:

“It’s essential to clarify that transparency does not mean a wholesale release of all our documents.”

Tether and Bitfinex will not appeal against the FOIL request put forward by journalists including Zeke Faux, Shane Shifflett and Ada Hui, while claiming that this is despite “certain behaviors” exhibited by the writers in question.

The company’s claim that Faux’s past reports on Tether and Bitfinex have “extended beyond the boundaries of professional journalism”. They also claim that media outlets including the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, whose journalists are participating in the ongoing FOIL request, have been “one-sided and inaccurate”.

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The statement stresses that both companies are committed to transparency and remain open to engagement with journalists and regulatory authorities, given that they “adhere to ethical reporting standards and respect data privacy boundaries”.

Tether and Bitfinex have also called for “responsible document review” before any public release of information and that their efforts to be transparent do not “equate to unrestricted public disclosure of all documents”.

Cointelegraph has reached out to Tether to ascertain finer details of the FOIL request and the information it pertains to.

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