Consolidation, page-18

The ASX will not look into any of this. As a listed entity on their own exchange they are conflicted and ultimately answerable to shareholders. Shareholders don't want the company to spend money beefing up their regulatory arm because it is not profit generating. So if their attention is drawn to a Top 20 company acting up they might beat their chest a bit to appear as though they're doing something but they have no interest at all in the micro end of the market. ASIC are much the same. If a behemoth goes rogue they'll be all over it, enjoying each mention they get in the media as if to validate their own existence. Occasionally the press fixate on a smaller player like Magnis Energy and ASIC are happy to go along for that ride but as for the wild west of corrupt tiddlers like CLZ, I honestly don't know what it would take to spark their interest. Colloquial evidence would suggest that a complainant would have to present them with a 200 page open and shut case but even then I doubt they'd be up for much.

The missed opportunity to straighten CLZ out came in 2016 when a geologist previously employed by the company, Sheldon Coates, took action in the Supreme Court to be granted access to company records as he strongly suspected the Doutch family of multiple dodgy dealings from the time CLZ was floated in 2013. Understandably Justin Doutch who was CEO at the time didn't want any of those records to see the light of day and argued that Coates was a vexatious litigant who was embittered after having fallen out with Classic and it's directors. The judicial officer found in favour of Coates and said that his concerns were "substantive and not fanciful" and were not "artificial, spurious or contrived". There was an article written about this which was published in The West Australian in 2016. Shareholders at the time might've been forgiven for thinking that the judgement would lead to an insight into the company's dealings but it didn't. Coates had 59 million shares in Classic, a sizeable holding back then before the wave of subsequent share consolidations. He settled out of court for an undisclosed amount and that was that. And where were ASIC? A Supreme Court hearing had ruled that the company's books were worthy of an investigation, an article in the West Australian, and still they did nothing to protect the interests of shareholders.