A former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission official did not violate ethics rules by declaring at a 2018 summit that the native token of Ethereum, a company linked to Simpson Thacher & Bartlett—where he had previously been a partner—wasn’t a security, the agency’s internal watchdog said in a report released Thursday following a years-long Freedom of Information Act request.
The SEC’s inspector general found that Bill Hinman, when he was the SEC’s corporate finance director, had given remarks that had been prepared by multiple officials and cleared by the appropriate parties. The reference to Ether, the watchdog concluded, had been a “collaborative” decision to provide listeners with an illustrative example on how to comply with SEC policies.