Well for whatever reason, the troops seem to be counting on Ash to make them whole again. And to him, that's just an opportunity to fleece them further.
Space: FINRA does not have any jurisdiction over reverse splits. Reverse splits are under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of State where the the stock is incorporated.
A reverse split requires a majority vote followed by an official amendment to the corporation's Articles of Incorporation filed with its state of incorporation. However, a lot of reverse splits are done without any shareholder vote because certain shareholders may have "super-voting" preferred shares to take any action and can vote in a separate action.
Other reverse splits are simply done illegally with no official vote taken.
Most company's will file the reverse split with FINRA under a Compnay-Related Action Form in order to process it with brokers, but it is not up to FINRA to pre-approve it.