Just days after a company-making deal with defence giant Raytheon, a series of failures has sent Department 13 into ASX purgatory after it accidentally released escrowed shares early.

Not only had the company launched its shares into the market — but the registry office let them.

Department 13 (ASX:D13) had 276.7 million shares in escrow for two years after it listed in January 2016.

But these were released to the market on December 18 last year, four and a half weeks early.

The ASX was on their case, demanding to know why the shares were out without its written consent — a requirement for releasing shares from escrow early.

“The start date of the two year restriction period applicable to the shares was incorrectly believed to be 18 December 2015,” the company told the ASX on Thursday.

“It was therefore believed, consistent with that incorrect belief, that the restriction period ended, and the shares were automatically released from restriction, on 18 December 2017,” chairman Jonathan Hunter said.

Department 13’s registry was also at fault.

Automic Registry told the ASX that processes had changed after new owners had come in, and Department 13 hadn’t been properly flagged as an ASX-mandated escrow account.

Department 13 shares are now suspended, but they last traded at 10.5c.

The shares shot up 32 per cent last week after it joined forces with US military giant Raytheon.

Raytheon will initially take on marketing and sales for Department 13’s MESMER technology which detects and redirects drones.

D13 shares over the past three months. Source: Investing.com

Featured Companies

You might be interested in