The chairman of the Shareholders Association says investors will end up carrying the cost if Diligent Board Member Services does breach rules to do with the audit of its financial reports.
The stock market operator has declined to grant a waiver to Diligent, demanding it obey rules that the company's finances are audited by a registered firm.
Diligent's annual report must be submitted to the NZX by the end of March, but the software firm says due to an oversight, it only realised its books would not be audited by a company which complied with New Zealand rules earlier this month.
It's the second compliance oversight in recent months.
Association chairman John Hawkins says he's surprised by this.
He says it's ironic that a company that provides software to manage board processes does not seem to be able to manage its own processes very well.
Mr Hawkins says it's also surprising that the company should have got itself into this situation when the former chief executive of the New Zealand Stock Exchange, Mark Weldon, is on the board.
