Law Firms Go After TASER Short Sellers (TASR)

A legal consortium of law firms has just filed suit on behalf of certain shareholders of TASER International Inc. (NASDAQ: TASR).  Two Houston-based firms, The O’Quinn Law Firm and Christian Smith & Jewell, and Atlanta-based Bondurant, Mixson & Elmore, LLP filed a Complaint in the State Court of Fulton County, Georgia.  This suit is against some of the top Wall Street bulge-bracket firms.  Listed in the complaint are the following:

• Bank of America Securities;
• Bear Stearns;
• Credit Suisse USA;
• DeutscheBank Securities;
• Goldman Sachs;
• Merrill Lynch;
• Morgan Stanley;
• and UBSSecurities.

The complaint does not stop at naked short selling.  This one alleges a flood of counterfeit shares that were put in the market to allow short sales.  To take things even further, this alleges RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization) violations in the State of Georgia.  RICO should turn this into a criminal matter rather than just a civil matter like most class action lawsuits, assuming that stays in the suit.

If you look at Taser’s short interest on NASDAQ for May 15, 2008, it has crept back up to 17,208,352 shares listed as short.  That is 8.6 days to cover, and apparently just over 30% of the float.  But that level is also much less than the 19.2 million shares short in mid-March and less than the 20+ million readings seen in short interest in January and February.

Jon C. Ogg
May 28, 2008