CASA should not interfere in the legal, financial or commercial arrangements of an aviation business. It doesn't have the legal right to do so, and in Glen's case or any other, it has no business asking for copies of contracts and the like. If they are unsatisfied that adequate resources, key personnel or supervision are in place, they have the ability to require those aspects to be addressed appropriately, and to take action if they're not, but it's gross overreach for them to be perusing anything else except for manuals required under the regulations, and conducting proper audits by visits, interviews and so on.
With the ombudsman's finding that there was no legal grounds for preventing the 'franchising' of flying school operations, we should welcome multi-layer organisations that can provide good standardised flying training, not put ever-increasing hurdles up in front of them. That's a telling point by Glen about the massive job just to transfer a student between schools - that's all been CASA's doing since 2014, and it sucks. Aeroplanes fly much the same and students learn in similar ways to how they always have (or better, with modern training aids), so why is it ten times harder to complete the paperwork? Those in CASA responsible for pushing us to this point should be ashamed.
With regard to responsibilities under Parts 141 and 142, CASA needs to be satisfied there is proper oversight by key personnel - fair enough. The flip side is that to restrict or stop anyone's operations, they need to be able to clearly demonstrate that that oversight is ineffective. I see no evidence in any of this lengthy saga that there was any suggestion of a lack of proper authority and oversight, so their flimsy case rests on the 'no franchising' argument, which as we know has already been debunked. If Glen has proven CASA knew about the structure and approved it way back, and then there's been no safety-based reason to interfere, then surely Blind Freddy could see who was in the wrong.
Good luck Glen, hope the process is wending its way to some positive conclusion for you.