Force Protection: Another naked short selling 'victim' faces delisting

One of the most common rebuttals to the naked short selling conspiracy theories is this: Name one company that has been hurt by naked short selling.

In a July 22nd interview with Fox Business, Overstock.com (NASDAQ: OSTK) CEO Patrick Byrne gave an example: Force Protection (NASDAQ: FRPT). "Makes vehicles for soldiers in Iraq. . . stock was at $25, got naked shorted down to $4, canceled the secondary. . . Some soldiers are going to die in Iraq this week because some hedge fund guys need a new Ferrari."

Oops. On August 14th, Force Protection dropped some bad news on its shareholders. In addition to having missed the deadline for filing its 10-K, the NASDAQ is now threatening to de-list Force Protection's stock for failing to file its 10-Q for the quarter ended June 30, 2008. This comes after the company changed auditors and, back in March, disclosed "certain material weaknesses in internal control over financial reporting."

And that is, according to a message Patrick Byrne left on a message board (View the post for a video of the interview) the "easiest way to explain this problem to Congressmen, Senators, and most Americans."

Note to Byrne: I, and I suspect many others, will be more convinced when a company without serious accounting/internal controls problems and/or a failed business model complains about naked short selling. So far we haven't heard anything like that.