I recently reviewed the law covering whether or not the general public can get access to documents that are provided to the SEC pursuant to a subpoena or other request in an investigative action. The short answer is YES, unless you claim an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act.
In my specific situation, the SEC had asked for information to back up claims made in an issuer’s press release. The issuer had the information, but it was a trade secret and not something that they ever wanted to be made public. Generally speaking, any information you give to the SEC is subject to disclosure to the general public pursuant to a FOIA requst.
The solution is to claim an exemption from FOIA by sending a letter to the SEC’s FOIA office, wihch can be found here. The FOIA office does not want to receive a copy of the entire package (which can be quite large), but just wants notification of your claim of exemption. The exemptions from FOIA can be found here.
