Wednesday, August 09, 2006

TASERs on Stun!

Today, TASER International, Inc. (NASDAQ: TASR) announced an agreement to settle the shareholder class action and derivative lawsuits pending in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona. The settlement will also resolve additional derivative lawsuits pending in both the Superior Court of Arizona for Maricopa County and the Delaware Court of Chancery, as well as a Section 220 lawsuit for production of documents also pending in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

TASER will pay $20 million to settle the federal securities class action litigation, consisting of approximately $4.1 million from insurance proceeds, $7.9 million in cash from the company, and $8 million in company stock or cash.

TASER also agreed to pay $1.75 million in stock for plaintiffs' attorney fees and to adopt certain corporate governance provisions consisting of the designation of a lead independent director who will be chosen from one of three independent directors now serving on the board, to settle the federal derivative lawsuit. As part of the settlement of that case, the two other derivative actions and the Section 220 action will also be dismissed.

Bernstein Liebhard & Lifshitz, LLP is lead counsel in the federal securities class action. The Weiser Law Firm, P.C. is lead counsel in the federal derivative litigation.

The good folks at TASER have been kind enough to post a whole page of actual police videos showing their products in action, here.

Daily Trivia: According to TASER's last 10-K at least 14 states and the District of Columbia restrict the possession and use of TASER weapons in some manner. Seven of those states (Hawaii, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) prohibit the use of TASER weapons by private citizens and one (New Jersey) prohibits their use by everyone, including law enforcement personnel.

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