Federal Court judge Bernard Murphy has approved a class action settlement which means victims of the collapse of GetSwift will be lucky to get back 1c in the dollar.
Federal Court judge Bernard Murphy has labelled the collapse of software market darling GetSwift a “scandalous episode in corporate misconduct” as he reluctantly approved a class action settlement, which means victims will beJustice Murphy said that it would be an “unhappy day” for the investors in the collapsed business, but there was no real prospect of getting back more than the $1 million settlement sum proposed, despite an estimated loss of $43 million by class action members.
“An early-stage tech company, primarily through its managing director Joel Macdonald and executive chairman and CEO, Bane Hunter, embarked on a systematic program of pumping up the GetSwift share price, through overly positive and thus misleading announcements to the ASX.”The company listed on the ASX in December 2016 with an issue price of 20¢ per share but by December 2017 the share price had risen to over $4 and the company raised another $75 million from investors.
“Mr Macdonald has few assets and there’s little prospect of any substantial recovery from him. He presently has some assets, but the penalty hearing in the ASIC proceeding has just concluded and ASIC is seeking a $1 million penalty against him,” Justice Murphy said.“Sadly, what this means is those persons who invested in GetSwift have been failed by the capital market,” Justice Murphy said, pointing to one investor who said he had been forced to relocate back to Ukraine.
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