SP1 (ASX) ASIC v ISX Hearing

Originally posted by ZMan: ↑

One conversation I found very interesting today was when the Judge asked about the off market trades during the “relevent period”
He said it was as issue which, I cant remember the exact phrase, but was along the lines of: he thought about or considered it at night or kept him up at night.

I interpret the “relevent period” from previous discussions to be the period while ISX was suspended but the Visa issue was not announced.

The ISX KC said there was 4 trades, but further analysis was needed to determine which ones were commercial trades and which were non-commercial, eg between entities controlled by the same person or from a deceased estate.

The ASIC KC said he had obtained raw data with around 1000 lines in a spreadsheet, but had not yet analysed them.

I dont know what the spreadsheet actually contains, but considering there were around 10,000 shareholders before suspension, 1,000 trades would represent 10% of holders, which appears to me very unlikely.

From the commentary, I expect the ISX and ASIC legal teams will analyse and discuss this further.
Clearly ASIC has not yet determined or been able to state to the court if there are any, or the volume of trades during any relevent period.
Is this a big hole in their visa accusations?

The Judge raised this issue before the independent experts appearance and I thought he considered the issue could be relevent to the appearance of the independent experts. Both KC said the independent experts could still be heard before the volume/quantity of off market trades was agreed.

The ASIC KC has many times stated that there is a need to comply with the continuous disclosure obligations, even while share trading is halted or suspended.

My personal opinion is that:
Its common behaviour that halting/suspending share trading is used to allow a company to conduct price sensitive actions without immediately disclosing.
eg. How many times has a company halted trading while raising capital by issuing new shares at a discount to a limited set of “sophisticated” shareholders. The details of the raising is not announced immediately, but delayed until the sophisticated shareholders have had an opportunity to participate in the raising.
My reading of the ASIC claims and the law is that that the details of any raising must be announced immediately to the market. (we know this never happens)
The Judge raising the question of off market trades is a signal to me that it is significant in his consideration.
Further, I think that ASIC’s failure to show the importance, (via any off market trades), of any disclosure while suspended is a big hole in their VISA accusations.

Lets see an AFR headline: “ASIC unable to answer Judges questions in their action against ISX”
LOL

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yep, I sense prosecution beginning to unravel.