MONTREAL – The head of Research In Motion’s operations in Indonesia could be hit with charges related to a stampede at a recent BlackBerry promotional event that injured dozens of consumers.
Canadian Andrew Cobham was among four suspects who is facing possible charges of negligence leading to injury, Jakarta police spokesman Col. Baharudin Djafar said Monday.
Several people fainted and dozens were injured at the Nov. 25 debut of RIM’s (TSX:RIM) BlackBerry Bold 9790 in Jakarta which offered a 50 per cent discount to the first 1,000 shoppers.
Research In Motion couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
The crime carries a maximum penalty of nine months in prison.
The Jakarta Post reported that Cobham had been barred from leaving the country. It said the ban also applies to Terry Burki, a security consultant hired by the company.
The $540 phones – known locally as Bellagios – were being sold at half price to the first 1,000 shoppers.
Indonesia, a country of 240 million people, has experienced a tech frenzy in recent years, and RIM has benefited from the growth. With six million users, BlackBerry is more popular in Indonesia than smartphones from other makers.
The latest RIM debacle comes days after two employees of its Ontario operations were slapped with a big fine after their drunken rowdiness forced an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Beijing to be diverted to Vancouver last week.
Forty-five-year-old George Campbell of Conestogo and 38-year-old Paul Alexander Wilson of Kitchener have been ordered to pay restitution of $71,757 after pleading guilty to mischief.
They were also given suspended sentences and probation for a year.
Research In Motion also announced last week it will take a hit of more than half a billion dollars from discounting its PlayBook tablet and its recent massive email outage.
RIM warned investors it will book a US$485-million charge before tax on the cost of discounting the price of PlayBooks by more than half to boost sales in the marketplace.
As well, the BlackBerry maker expects about US$50 million in lost revenues from the October outage that affected millions of BlackBerry email and text users around the world.
The charges will impact RIM’s financial projections for the current fiscal year and squeeze the company’s profits and revenues.
Shares in Research In Motion were down 10 cents to $16.98 in late morning trading Monday on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
– with files from The Associated Press
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