In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Axon, the largest manufacturer of body-worn cameras, said Thursday that it had missed e-mails from the agency due to "miscommunication issues."
According to Bloomberg, the snafu was due to an e-mail that the SEC sent on August 10 to the company’s new chief financial officer—however those messages were quarantined in a spam filter, and he seemingly did not see them.
The SEC was seeking clarification about the company’s financial disclosures, particularly surrounding its 2016 financial report and its first quarter 2017 report.
On September 20 2017, the federal agency wrote to CFO Jawad Ahsan, noting that its inquiries were "outstanding and unresolved, and absent a substantive response, we would act consistent with our obligations under the federal securities laws."
Axon spokesman Steve Tuttle told Ars that in the past, the SEC had send "hard copy letters," and he noted that the company was working "to resolve these matters as expeditiously as possible."
"In this instance they sent the request via e-mail to one individual that had never corresponded with the sender before and therefore the sender's message was caught in a filter and never reached the intended recipient," Tuttle added. "Once we were made aware of the original letter and confirmed receipt we responded to the SEC and we will be providing them with responses to their questions. We remain confident in our accounting statements and will not comment further on this matter until we have these routine Comment Letter questions fully resolved.”
On Friday, Axon also announced that the Richland County Sheriff's Department in South Carolina is the first agency to commit to a "full deployment" of "Signal Sidearm"—a product that automatically activates body-worn cameras as soon as an officer’s gun is drawn.
According to a company statement, the RCSD will deploy 300 units before the end of the year.
