(15 April 2010 – New Zealand) The Securities Commission has announced it will file civil proceedings against certain current and former directors, based in New Zealand and Australia, of Nuplex Industries Limited, including a member of the Securities Commission who resigned after the announcement was made earlier this week.David Jackson has resigned as a member of the Securities Commission, effective immediately, in the wake of civil proceedings being filed against him for his role as a director of Nuplex.
The Commission alleges that from 22 December 2008 until 19 February 2009 Nuplex breached its continuous disclosure obligations under the NZX Listing Rules and the Securities Markets Act 1988 by failing to disclose to the market a breach of a banking covenant, and that both Nuplex and the directors are responsible for this failure, Commission Chairman Jane Diplock said in a statement.
The Commission is seeking declarations of contravention, pecuniary penalties and compensatory orders.
The Securities Commission said that this is the first continuous disclosure case brought by the Commission and the matter was brought to there attention through its own market surveillance.
The directors involved from the New Zealand chemicals and resins firm Nuplex Ltd include John Hirst (Managing Director, Sydney), Robert Aitken (Chairman and non-executive director, Sydney), Barbara Gibson (non-executive director, Melbourne), David Jackson (non-executive director, Auckland), Bryan Kensington (former non-executive director, Auckland) and Michael Wynter (non-executive director, Sydney).