Opening a line of communication with the Financial Markets Authority was Ashutosh's decision, a decision that isn't made by many ICO due to the still heavily unregulated structures. When the FMA decided that the SMG marketplace looked off, they signaled an official warning which triggered the New Zealand Herald article.
Ashutosh fully intends to cooperate with the New Zealand FMA and hopes to start the ICO in 2018, according to their wishes!
The Bounty campaign is currently considered PAUSED. However, every stake earned so far is registered, and once the bounty campaign begins again (shortly), all users who have earned SMG will still be registered as participants, and this same thread will be utilized.
Sell My Good and Ashutosh will have more updates within the next 24 hours.
Thank you for the update. Hopefully this can be sorted out asap. I like the project and being a Aussie I always like to support the kiwis (Well except in sports)
I'll keep checking in on fresh news here.