For financial reporting, a first ever: former listed company QEX Logistics and director Jingjie Xue were fined for failing to file financial statements.
Ten years on from enactment, Financial Markets Authority for the first time has prosecuted a listed company for failing to file financial statements.
Financial Markets Conduct Act requires timely filing of financial statements by ‘reporting entities,’ intended to keep investors better informed.
With legal action filed in 2024, FMA decided to pick over the carcase of former listed company QEX Logistics Ltd.
It currently sits moribund on the Companies Office register.
QEX was floated to the public in 2018 as a vehicle promoting NZ/China trade; delisted in 2022 after reporting losses of stock valued at some four million dollars and mass resignation of all directors other than founding director Jingjie Xue.
The High Court was told QEX had over 400 shareholders by the 2020 financial year.
It has failed to file financial statements since the 2021 financial year. Filing requirements continued beyond delisting.
Mr Xue said resignation of fellow directors left the company with insufficient expertise to prepare annual financial statements.
It was agreed failure to file was not a case of dishonesty, rather negligence and mismanagement.
Justice Powell fined QEX Logistics $875,000; Mr Xue $175,000 with payment by instalments over the next eight months.
Mr Xue was also banned from being director of any reporting entity for the next three years. In general terms, a ‘reporting entity’ is any substantial commercial entity holding investor funds.
Financial Markets Authority v. QEX Logistics Ltd & Xue – High Court (23.04.26)
26.144