GetSwift confirms ASIC has come knocking with requests for documents

GetSwift

GetSwift's Joel MacDonald and Bane Hunter. Source: Supplied

Software company GetSwift has been served with a notice to provide the corporate regulator with information about the business.

In a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) this morning, GetSwift Limited confirmed that the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) has served the troubled company a notice to produce documents.

“The Company has informed ASIC that it will comply with the notice and fully cooperate so that its investigation may be completed as soon as reasonably possible,” GetSwift said in the statement.

The company has stressed that the situation should not be construed “as an indication by ASIC that a contravention of the law has occurred”.

The exact nature of the documents requested is not known.

The software-as-a-service company has faced a number of challenges over the past year, including questions from the ASX about how it disclosed information about partnerships to shareholders.

These questions were raised after a Fairfax investigation into the company, which raised concerns over how the GetSwift was informing shareholders about the trial periods involved in deals it had formed with big clients.

On January 22, GetSwift requested the Australia Securities Exchange (ASX) suspend shares from trading on the ASX. The ASX sent a list of 28 questions to GetSwift’s management about the partnerships it announced to the market.

Earlier this month, GetSwift told the ASX it was unable to confirm whether it was compliant with the ASX’s listing rule, which requires companies to immediately update the market once they become aware of information that could have “a material effect on the price or value”. GetSwift had contracted PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an audit of the company’s stock market compliance.

The request from ASIC comes at a time when the company is also facing the possibility of a class action lawsuit from investors, Fairfax reports, involving allegations that GetSwift misled investors in communications about its contracts with the Fruit Box, Fantastic Furniture and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

NOW READ: How GetSwift got here: A timeline of the tech startup’s troubles

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