ASIC has called for a $15 million penalty against GetSwift and 12-year bans against its directors, who moved the logistics company overseas as the regulator’s enforcement action was on foot, a move the court on Tuesday said was “unprecedented”.
Logistics company GetSwift and its directors have dropped their challenge to a judgment that found the company breached its continuous disclosure obligations with its “PR-driven” approach to ASX statements.
Logistics company GetSwift will argue on appeal that a judge who found the company took a “PR-driven approach” to ASX statements was wrong in his assessment of whether those statements contained material omissions.
Logistics company GetSwift and its directors are appealing a win for ASIC in the regulator’s case that alleged they breached their continuous disclosure obligations and engaged in misleading and deceptive conduct in the release of 22 ASX announcements.
A judge has dressed down ASIC over the handling of its action against GetSwift, criticising the regulator’s failure to seek a court injunction to prevent the company’s relocation to Canada.
Logistics company GetSwift says it is considering an appeal of an 859-page judgment which lambasted the company and its directors’ “public relations-driven approach” to announcements on the Australian Stock Exchange.
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission has scored a victory in its long-running case against GetSwift, with the Federal Court finding the company and its directors breached the Corporations Act and ASIC Act through their “public relations-driven approach” to announcements on the Australian Stock Exchange.
Murray Goulburn’s former managing director Gary Helou and chief financial officer Brad Hingle have been disqualified from heading up companies after they were found to have breached the Corporations Act for their role in the milk supplier’s repeated failure to disclose an expected material decrease in the milk supplier’s earnings guidance for 2016.
The corporate regulator is pushing for a three-year director ban against former Murray Goulburn managing director Gary Helou and a two-year disqualification order against the dairy cooperative’s former chief financial officer over misleading representations about farmgate milk prices five years ago.
ASIC’s case against GetSwift and its founders Joel Macdonald and Bane Hunter makes accusations against both directors but relies on alleged conduct by only Hunter, a lawyer for Macdonald has told a court on the last day of trial in the corporate regulator’s case.