The Texas Blockchain Council (TBC) and Riot Platforms, a Bitcoin mining company, have achieved a favorable outcome in their lawsuit against several U.S. energy officials, as ruled by a United States District judge.
In a previous report on February 22, Cointelegraph revealed that the TBC and Riot accused the U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration (EIA), the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and their leaders of requesting intrusive data collection from cryptocurrency miners.
According to a filing made on February 23 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, the TBC and Riot successfully convinced the judge that irreversible harm would occur without a temporary restraining order (TRO) against further data collection.
As a result, the court imposed a TRO that prevents the EIA from demanding responses to the survey from crypto miners, and also prohibits the EIA from sharing any data already collected from the survey.
The TBC and Riot argued that the potential damages include expenses that cannot be recovered from complying with the survey, a legitimate threat of prosecution if they refuse to comply, and the disclosure of proprietary information that was requested.
Furthermore, there was a disagreement regarding the duration of time given to miners to complete the survey, with no compensation provided.
Although the EIA estimated a completion time of around 30 minutes, the court deemed this estimation to be “extremely inaccurate.”
Meanwhile, the TBC and Riot also disputed the estimate, claiming that the cost of compliance has already exceeded 40 hours.
Based on the evidence presented, the court concluded that TBC and Riot were likely to win the lawsuit. Additionally, it accused the EIA of misusing its authority to obtain approval for the emergency survey, which the court found to be insufficient justification for such action.
“The plaintiffs also demonstrate that they are likely to succeed on the merits. The survey was proposed and approved under an emergency provision of the PRA,” stated the filing.
The TRO will expire before March 25, with its purpose being to “maintain the current situation” for the following four weeks.