14 DAY TRIAL // You'd think that an acquisition rumor involving two companies wouldn't really stir an entire hornets' nest, but when one of the two companies happen to be one of the hugest business conglomerates in the world, the potential for disaster skyrockets.
That is what happened not long ago, when press distributor Cision published an announcement about Samsung having acquired Swedish fingerprint biometrics company Fingerprint Cards. According to Cision, the deal was already over and done with.
Both Samsung and Fingerprint Cards immediately said that no such deal had taken place, or even been considered. Unfortunately, by that time the damage had already been done.
And by damage, we mean the consequences on the global stock market. NASDAQ canceled a $24.6 million / €18.15 million trade.
That trade took place in a roughly seventeen minute window after the publication of the Cision press release.
NASDAQ also halted trades on the Fingerprint Cards stock, as well as those of the company’s key rivals.
So one can imagine the uproar that resulted once it was revealed that it was all a false alart. NASDAQ is investigating the issue, but more important is that the Swedish Economic Crime Authority has gotten involved.
SECA believes this may have been an intentional instance of misinformation, in order to influence the share price of Fingerprint Cards AB. And the price was influenced alright, having gone up by 50% almost immediately after the fake $650 million / €479 million acquisition was announced.
“There are reasons to believe that someone by a false press release deliberately spread misinformation in order to influence the share price of Fingerprint Cards AB” the agency said (translated through Google) in a statement today.
“We see this incident very seriously and investigation of serious scam has begun” deputy chief prosecutor at the Economic Crimes Bureau Olof Kronlund said.
Cision agrees that the faked release was part of a “sophisticated fraud,” but no one knows who, exactly, published it.