Report: RIM CEO's optimistic comments may spark lawsuits

Research in Motion (NASDAQ:RIMM) CEO Thorsten Heins is under fire for some comments he made last week in the wake of the company's revelation in late June that it will delay the launch of its first BlackBerry 10 devices until the first quarter of 2013.

Although Heins acknowledged that the company is facing a very challenging environment, he told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation that there was "nothing wrong with the company as it exists right now" and denied that RIM was, as some investors believe, in a death spiral that it cannot recover from.

Heins comments have prompted several securities law experts and some investors to speculate that the company will be facing lawsuits for misrepresentation. "They're going to get sued and they should get sued because I think a closer look at the record is likely to unearth knowing and willful misrepresentation," said Jean-Louis Gassee, a venture capitalist and blogger in Palo Alto, Calif., according to a New York Times report.

Nevertheless, RIM rejected those claims, noting in a statement that "the company is well aware of its disclosure obligations under applicable securities laws and is committed to providing a high level of transparency."

In other RIM news, the company reported that its BlackBerry App World app store has logged more than 3 billion downloads since its debut in 2009. Around 1 billion of those downloads occurred in the past six months alone.

RIM said that it is recording about two-and-a-half million downloads per day from its App World store. Those downloads include productivity apps, games and more.

For more:
- see this New York Times article
- see this FierceMobileContent report
- read this Inside BlackBerry Developer Blog entry

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