The reason they are argueing that they always owned the stock is that they know that the charge they put in place a ridiculous 7 days before sending Opes into receivership will not be worth the paper it's printed on.
Their behaviour points to something different (ie lack of substantial shareholder notices etc) which the court may determine as changing the nature of the contract.
If ANZ are going around boasting about owning stock for 3-4 years how are they going to answer the question from ASIC/ASX about lack of substantial shareholder notices? Are they then going to turn around to them and say..."sorry, we didn't realise we had to do anything".
They can;t have it both ways. If the court determines that they always owned the stock then ASIC MUST hand out the biggest corporate fine IN AUSTRALIAN HISTORY or be a laughing stock of the financial world.
