BlackBerry Disputes Report on Z10 Phone
BlackBerry contends that a securities analyst’s report about its latest phone is not only wrong, it’s so wrong that it should be investigated by securities regulators.
The report, issued on Thursday by Detwiler Fenton & Company in Boston, said that BlackBerry’s new Z10 phone is being returned by shoppers at an above-average rate. In a statement on Friday, BlackBerry called the analysis “false and misleading” and suggested that it was an attempt to manipulate the company’s share price. Furthermore, it said it would ask the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the report.
“These materially false and misleading comments about device return rates in the United States harm BlackBerry and our shareholders,” Steven E. Zipperstein, the company’s chief legal officer, said in a statement. “Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the merits of the many competing products in the smartphone industry, but when false statements of material fact are deliberately purveyed for the purpose of influencing the markets, a red line has been crossed.”
The company did not offer any information to substantiate Mr. Zipperstein’s suggestion that the report was knowingly false and a deliberate attempt at stock manipulation. Adam Emery, a spokesman for BlackBerry, declined to elaborate.
Anne Buckley, the general counsel and chief compliance officer at Detwiler Fenton, said that the investment house stood by its findings.
“We are confident in our research methodology and we welcome any regulatory inquiry,” she said in a statement. “Detwiler Fenton is not the only research provider publishing similar reports regarding customer reactions, sales and returns of the BlackBerry Z10.”
The statement added that neither the analyst nor any officer or director of the firm held any financial interest in BlackBerry.
The report at the center of the dispute varied from other skeptical assessments of BlackBerry in claiming that dissatisfied Z10 owners are returning the phones in large numbers.
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