As the letter to Longo states quoting from the ISX 4FASOC, ISX suspended ASX less than 24 hours after members of ASX's compliance team had stated that they would be suspending:
• Without sufficient “hard” evidence,
• Would be based on mere suspicion, and
• Would go well beyond ASX’s powers
They knew they were doing the wrong thing and wanted ASIC to help to justify the suspension by giving ASX a direction. ASIC, who also knew they would be doing the wrong and didn't want to be involved (??) only allowed reference ASIC allowed that "ASIC was making enquires..."
Even our police are not able to lock up a person without hard or sufficient evidence. It is just not done. It is just not legal - end of story.
It is ridiculous to attempt to justify breaking laws when suspending ISX without sufficient evidence by making statements in the media such as, "As ASX has made clear in its defence to iSignthis's claim, the circumstances that have come to light since ISX's suspension has reinforced ASX's view that our decision to suspend ISX was the right one". How does this stack up to the fact that ASX won't even own their "statement of reason"? ASX stated in their reply to ISX's 3FASOC, "any representation conveyed by the Final Reasons in relation to the matters alleged to constitute the First to Eleventh Representations (which are denied) was a representation of
ASX’s opinion based on information provided to it by ISX, or alternatively of ASX’s opinion, and
not a representation of fact". So even at the time of releasing the ASX "Statement of Reasons" ~ 7 months after the suspension and after ~5 query letters and reams and reams of documents supplied by ISX, everything was STILL just as ASX says, suspicions - not "hard evidence"!
I have spent the last two days re-reading the ASIC Statement of Claim, ISX's reply, and ASIC's reply to the reply. Nothing in ASIC's claim is convincing. Nothing in it has me worried.
Grant Thornton confirmed that the revenue satisfied Australian Accounting Standards AASB No. 118, AASB No 111 and AASB No.15: and further said in the Auditor's Findings Report:
(i) they had been presented with all necessary books and records and explanations requested of management;
(ii) they had not detected any material deficiencies in the accounting policies disclosed;
(iii) there had not been any disagreements with management;
(iv) there were no difficulties encountered during the audit;
(v) there were no exceptions to the audit report; and
(vi) no discrepancies or instances of fraud had been identified.
So what started this and why? We know that there is nothing to indicate (at least from the currently discovered documents) that upper management was involved. But it also doesn't prove they weren't. Perhaps it is the HWL's strategy to pull that information out by stating that it was just the compliance team who suspended without sufficient reason and without upper management approval. I would imaging that someone will have to address that statement and "admit" or "deny". Umm can't wait.
But what of our question "Who requisitioned the Ownership Matters (OM) Report? We also know that the statement of claim alleges that discovered documents indicate that the Ownership Matters (OM) report published on 10 September 2019, was "send that day by Dean Paatsch of Ownership Matters Pty Ltd to David Barnett of ASX" with continued involvement by Dean Paatsch of OM due to "a spreadsheet sent on 25 September 2019 by Dean Paatsch of Ownership Matters Pty Ltd to Kevin Lewis of ASX". New question: 1. What was the reason for Paatsch's initial and continued involvement? 2. How much, if any, did Paatsch's involvement influence the suspension of ISX?
