15 U.S.C. § 78x — Public availability of information

(a) "Records" defined. For purposes of the Freedom of Information Act (section 552 of title 5), "records" means every application, statement, report, contract, letter, notice, and other document filed with the SEC or otherwise obtained by it under this chapter or otherwise. (b) Disclosure or personal use. No SEC member, officer, or employee may show any information from these records to someone outside the SEC, or use it for personal benefit, if doing so would break the SEC's confidentiality rules under the Freedom of Information Act, or if the SEC has decided by rule to keep that information confidential. (c) Confidential disclosures. The SEC may choose to share records and other information with people or agencies, in the U.S. or abroad, who show they need it, as long as the recipient gives the confidentiality assurances the SEC finds appropriate. (d) Records obtained from foreign securities authorities. Except as subsection (g) limits it, the SEC does not have to disclose records it got from a foreign securities regulator if that regulator has determined in good faith that public disclosure would break its own country's laws, and the SEC got the records either through a procedure it has approved for enforcing the securities laws, or under a memorandum of understanding. This protection counts as a Freedom of Information Act exemption. (e) Freedom of Information Act. For the FOIA exemption covering financial-institution supervisors (section 552(b)(8) of title 5), the SEC counts as a regulator of financial institutions, and any entity the SEC regulates, supervises, or examines under this chapter counts as a financial institution. (f) Sharing privileged information with other authorities. If the SEC shares privileged information with certain other bodies — federal agencies, the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, self-regulatory organizations, or foreign securities or law-enforcement authorities — the SEC does not lose any legal privilege over that information. The SEC does not have to disclose privileged information it got from a foreign securities or law-enforcement authority if that authority determined in good faith that the information is privileged. Likewise, federal agencies, state securities and law-enforcement authorities, self-regulatory organizations, and the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board do not waive their own privilege by giving information to the SEC, except that a self-regulatory organization or the Accounting Oversight Board does waive privilege over information the SEC uses against that same organization in an action. "Privilege" here includes work-product, attorney-client, governmental, or any other privilege recognized under federal, state, or foreign law. A "foreign law enforcement authority" is a foreign body empowered to detect, investigate, or prosecute violations of law. A "State securities or law enforcement authority" is a state or territory body with that same power. (g) Savings provision. Nothing in this section changes the SEC's duties under the Right to Financial Privacy Act (as limited elsewhere in this chapter), and nothing here lets the SEC withhold information from Congress or ignore a U.S. court order in a case brought by the United States or the SEC.