Axon Enterprise’s chief financial officer was given three chances to respond. First on Aug. 10, when the US Securities and Exchange Commission, looking for clarification on recent corporate filings, wrote “Please respond to these comments within ten business days.” The letter notes it was sent “via email.” Then on Sep. 5: “These comments remain outstanding and unresolved. We expect you to provide a complete, substantive response to these comments by September 19, 2017.” Finally, on Sep. 20: “As you have not provided a substantive response, we are terminating our review and will take further steps as we deem appropriate.”
Yesterday the company—which makes the Taser as well as body cameras for law enforcement—made a new filing. “Due to miscommunication issues, the Company did not become aware of these letters until today.”
Those “issues” were actually singular: An over-aggressive spam filter. Bloomberg reports that Dougherty & Co. analyst Jeremy Hamblin disclosed the slip-up in a note to clients.
Hamblin told Bloomberg that the company has remedied its systems to prevent similar issues in the future.
The irony, of course, is that Axon is a company focused on providing tools for enhancing law enforcement. Its faulty spam filter (though not made by Axon) has just stymied a law enforcement agency’s actions by confusing the good guys with the bad.