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A press release stating that Samsung had agreed to acquire Fingerprint Cards is “incorrect,” the Swedish maker of fingerprint ID sensors said Friday.
“The previous press release was not sent by Fingerprint Cards AB. Trading in the share has been suspended,” Fingerprint Cards said in a statement. “What has happened will be reported to the police and to the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority.”
Cision, a public-relations firm, expressed regret for the press release publication. “Cision apologizes to Fingerprint Cards AB and other stakeholders for this error,” the firm said.
Fingerprint Cards Chief Executive Johan Carlstrom didn’t sound pleased about the situation. “Cision should have controlled the press release before publishing and made a control phone call,” he told CNET in a statement.
Fingerprint Card’s stock surged 50 percent in value Friday before trading was halted.
Cision published the news at 1:17 a.m. PT, according to a cached version of the page, and BusinessWire, a top distributor of news releases, carried the announcement at 1:23 a.m. According to a Google cache, Fingerprint Cards also published the announcement on its own Web site. But that is because “Cision has an automatic feed of press releases to our homepage,” Carlstrom said.
CNET has contacted Samsung and will update this story with its response.
Updated at 3:31 a.m., 3:57 a.m., 4:44 a.m., 6:25 a.m., and 7:06 a.m. PT with further detail, Cision’s apology, and Fingerprint Cards’ statement.
Screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET
(Via The Verge)
