As I understand it, one of the conditions of a takeover is that...

As I understand it, one of the conditions of a takeover is that shares may not be purchased by the bidder or any affiliate above the bid price. I'm not saying this has happened, but in this case, if any business entity or individual has purchased shares on market above the offer price of 84 cents and then sold these same shares to the bidder at 84 cents, at any time during the takeover offer period, then this would be a clear breach and violation of the regulations.
The argument is that such an act could be for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to assist the bidder to reach the required threshold of 90%.
Rules and regulations are meaningless if they are not policed and where there are breaches, penalties applied. If there was a discovery of this happening, with or without the approval or knowledge of the bidder, then this would still be in breach of the regulations.
In such circumstances, it would be difficult and impracticable if not impossible to reverse these transactions. The only penalty that would have any meaning and which could be applied is for the 90% threshold to be adjusted upwards or in an extreme case, abandoned altogether.
It should be remembered this 90% shareholding and subsequent compulsory acquisition of the remaining shares is a purely arbitrary figure. It has been chosen simple because it is seen as reasonable. It is, however, unreasonable to reach this threshold by breaching the rules.
If there was a call for a forensic examination of the share register, on reasonable suspicion that there had been a breach, then the regulators would be duty bound to conduct such an examination, freezing any moves to compulsory acquire shares until the matter was resolved.
Knowing that corporate regulators in Australia act at a glacial speed on the rare occasions they act at all, it may be necessary in the first instance for shareholders to conduct an examination themselves.