SEC’s Document Purging Wasn’t Authorized, Archives Agency Says

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission didn’t have authority to dispose of investigation documents the agency had been routinely purging since 1993, the National Archives and Records Administration said.

NARA, the Washington-based agency that oversees federal record-keeping, opened an investigation last year after an SEC employee claimed the agency was illegally destroying files pertaining to so-called matters under inquiry, NARA said in a statement yesterday. The SEC, which NARA said has since halted the practice, destroyed the documents without approval, according to the statement.