I believe that we should all start an email storm to the editor (afreditor@copyright link.au) and Jonathan Shapiro ( jonathan.shapiro@copyright link) concerning Jonathan's biased, insinuative and emotive reporting on ISX. The following contains my original letter, Jonathan's response, and my response to Jonathan's response.
Original email:
I am a subscriber of the Financial Review and a shareholder of ISX. I am deeply disturbed by your reporting of ISX as it appears to be heavily and emotionally skewed towards the presumption of guilt instead of just the reporting of the facts. You seem to have some “skin in the game” for finding ISX to have acted corruptly or in contravention to ASC and ASIC rules and your words are heavily emotive and slanted towards that conclusion.
In my opinion, only the ASX and ASIC have the ability to look into the information and determine if there was anything of substance that contravened the acts and instead of leading the public to believe in a guilty verdict before they get all the facts does not appear to be in the professional nature that I have “had” come to respect with the AFR and as such I am considering cancelling my subscription.
Jonathan's response:
Thank you for your e-mail. I note and respect your observations. I take my role as a reporter very seriously and seek at all times to base on my reporting on the facts, which I believe I have done. I have no 'skin in the game' other than my ongoing reputation and responsibilities.
My response to Jonathan:
Jonathan,
Do you really think that emotive headlines such as “Big hunk ofiSignthis revenue came from ‘deceptive’ CFD firm” and “Due diligence ‘notapplicable’” and “Catching a KAB” are really “reporting on the facts” and nottrying to influence the reader into thinking that there is something sinistergoing on? This is not the balanced reporting I expect from theAFR. The ASX and ASIC are responsible for making thatdetermination.
1. Re “Big hunk of iSignthis revenue came from‘deceptive’ CFD firm”: You never said that the 23.5 % was in earlydays when the company was just beginning and income was low. Thisamounted to only approximately $800k. People who are not informedabout ISX would not know this and you have an obligation to clarify.
2.Re “iSignthis also terminated five customers during 2018and 2019, it told the ASX”: No explanation that their internalprocess were able to pick up the risk presented by these clients was notnecessary here ? Really? Is it not a good thing thatthey were able to pick this up?
3.Re “Due Diligence ‘not applicable”: Thispart of your “balanced reporting” is more than a little “snide” . In case you don’t know the meaning of snide it is someone “snobby, mocking,devious or underhanded”. You insinuated that they could havefound out these guys were corrupt by an abundance of information on theinternet. My query found articles in 2019, well after they hadceased working with Tradologic. Even the article you point to waswritten in 2019. I was glad to see that you did mention theimportant information that the ISX never ever offered any financial servicesnor was any revenue from Tradologic received, though the impact of this wasseverely reduced by your lead up to this information.
4.Re “Catching a KAB”: It is clear what yourinsinuations are concerning the KAB “26 alerts”. Why not let theASX and ASIC determine if there is anything going on there instead of trying toinfluence the market.
I consider that ISX’s response to queries about the shareholdersof RedX, although not technically dishonest, was misleading and evasive and ithas tempered my trust. But your words are no different. It is no surprise that the media has less respect from the publicthan politicians.
Finally, being suspended from trading is not evidence ofcorruption. This is primarily to protect investors from anemotional market that will react to articles like yours. Ipersonally appreciate that the company is suspended from trading until the ASXand ASIC makes a determination. If they find that substantialcorruption is going on, then I will consider my losses to bedeserved. If the ASX and ASIC do not find corruption, but yourwords have influenced the market to create a loss, I will consider this to beunforgiveable and, in my opinion, corrupt.
