Hi
@itzgr82balive, I'm looking forward to their defence as well.
What I believe is they simply made those statements in a bid to get ASIC to issue the suspension and remove all liability from themselves, as they could then argue they were only carrying out ASIC's directive. They would then feed ASIC, ATO, AUSTRAC, Visa, MasterCard and the whole world (with AFR being a willing accomplice) information unfairly gathered to spur them into investigating ISX, and then sit back and watch everything unfold, whilst keeping ISX suspended and suffering the consequences of the various investigations and lost business from the suspension. Really well-planned and executed except for the fact ASIC didn't fully play along. They may have had support from some staff at ASIC, but definitely not all.
And who knows if they were the actual client OM wrote the report for!
It now makes sense why they were requesting detailed information about the shareholding structure of ISX BVI and Red5 and Select All during the escrow discussions - so they could feed the info to the ATO! Apparently, JK knew what they were doing, and that's why he refused to give them more information than they needed to know.
I guess if they plead the notes were just the writer's opinion, that would just be kicking the can down the road. As JK said, in the "treasure trove", they kept very detailed memos of their dealings with ASIC, but hardly any of their own internal discussions. Obviously, anyone can see that that was their get-out-of-jail-free card and the notes were more likely accurate representations than not. Hopefully, it won't get to the point ASX and ASIC participants would be spitballing (under oath) what was said or wasn't said in those meetings!
If they plead the notes were accurate, then it's game over unless they suddenly come up with a reason why they suspended ISX that didn't exist before the Oct 2 meeting and satisfies LR17.3 as well as their licensee obligations under the Act! But who knows, they may still come up with something...
