I'm hoping they win as I'm a holder! To me it's a positive that...

I'm hoping they win as I'm a holder! To me it's a positive that the company is willing to fight this and that Stirling (one of the directors) is prepared to fund the litigation, also that directors are taking shares in lieu of cash for their fees.
Maybe your right and the company should have known better then to carry on with operations, when they hadn't heard back from the government but... it may have been just as costly to stop operations as it was to carry on. I'm no legal eagle but after speed reading the announcements it would appear the company did all that it was legally obliged to, but in retrospect maybe they could have kept the government more informed!