(Reuters) -Australia’s company regulator stated on Wednesday it was suing the nation’s bourse operator ASX Ltd for making “deceptive” statements concerning the timeline to switch its buying and selling platform Clearing Home Digital Subregister System (CHESS).

The Australian Securities and Investments Fee (ASIC) alleged ASX’s statements that claimed the alternative of the CHESS platform remained “on-track for go-live” in April 2023 and was “progressing well” had been deceptive and misleading.

ASIC alleged the mission was not transferring forward as deliberate when the statements had been made in early February 2022 and ASX didn’t have any “reasonable basis” to indicate that the mission would meet the timeline.

“We believe this was a collective failure by the ASX Board and senior executives at the time,” ASIC Chair Joe Longo stated in a press release.

In late 2022, ASX halted the rebuild of its ageing software program utilizing blockchain-based expertise citing dysfunctional administration, considerations concerning the product’s complexity and scalability, and problem discovering consultants to assist it.

The axing of the mission has since resulted in an A$176.3 million ($117.01 million) writedown, an ASIC investigation and raised questions over the integrity of the trade that hosts firms value a mixed A$2.50 trillion.

“We recognise the significance and serious nature of these proceedings,” ASX CEO Helen Lofthouse stated in an trade submitting on Wednesday.

“We cooperated fully with ASIC’s investigation and are now carefully reviewing and considering the allegations.”

ASIC is but to find out the penalty it’ll search for ASX’s alleged contraventions, the regulator stated.

($1 = 1.5072 Australian {dollars})