BlackBerry will this week ask the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Ontario Securities Commission in Canada to investigate a report into return rates on its Z10 smartphone.
The troubled handset maker’s stock was sent tumbling late last week after US research and investment firm Detwiler Fenton claimed return rates on the device were unusually high. BlackBerry immediately refuted the figures, and states it is seeking the investigations because the research firm refuses to share the report or details of how it arrived at its figures.
“These materially false and misleading comments about device return rates in the United States harm BlackBerry and our shareholders, and we call upon the appropriate authorities in Canada and the United States to conduct an immediate investigation,” BlackBerry chief legal officer Steve Zipperstein said.
“Everyone is entitled to their opinion about the merits of 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.”
BlackBerry president and chief executive, Thorsten Heins, says feedback from retailers and operators “demonstrates that customers are satisfied with their devices,” and that data on return rates “show that we are at or below our forecasts and right in line with the industry.”