Securities fraud is illegal behavior in which an investor carries out transactions in the stock, futures, currency, or commodity markets with the intent to defraud other investors. Securities fraud can occur in any industry, though the most common is securities fraud committed in the property markets. Securities fraud often involves insiders manipulating prices or data to benefit themselves. Fraudsters also may engage in price manipulation, including issuing fake dividends to cover their own losses. The criminal financial schemes typically affect one or more businesses, resulting in substantial losses to the victims.
Securities fraud refers to any intentional act or course of action designed to defraud others. False information is used as a strategy. For example, if an investor is told by a corporate insider that he or she has double the profits expected for the money they have invested, this information is used to manipulate the price of the security. False information or Trading like this is considered securities fraud. In these cases, there may be intent to defraud investors but not evidence of such defrauding.
Corporate securities fraud often involves some kind of corporate wrongdoing by a number of different business owners or officers. In these cases, the investors who are involved are not entitled to compensation damages because the defendant failed to maintain proper accounting records. Accounting records are required to track and keep track of all company finances, especially those involving loans and leases. Because these transactions sometimes involve long terms and multi-million dollar obligations, the records must be accurate.
Securities fraud by individual corporations is also a popular form of corporate wrongdoing. In these instances, a corporation’s officers generally will commit securities fraud, even though the business is publicly held Securities Fraud. In United States, the top investors in many business corporations are company directors or executives. These shareholders can typically be disbarred from future voting privileges.
Another type of securities fraud occurs when business owners or officers provide false information to investors. Common examples of this include the false statements made during initial public offerings. Initial public offerings are a method used for raising capital for any number of reasons, but the most common reason is to increase the value of the business. In order to do this, the company must inflate its stock price in hopes that the company will soon reach a high enough value to justify paying out more money in stock dividends.
Disregard of market timing is another example of securities fraud. This refers to investors who purchase shares of stock that are moving in the wrong direction. They may not necessarily be intentionally doing this, but because they do not take time to properly analyze market movement, they provide false information to other investors about where the market will go next.
The most well-known form of securities fraud is a stock market trading. Many people have been charged criminally for providing false and inaccurate information on stock reports. These charges are often times related to securities fraud. When an investor provides false information on a report that increases the price of a stock, he could be held criminally liable for the action. Securities fraud comes in many different forms; however, these are the most common.
Other common types of securities fraud include: fraudulent billing, non-trading, and the false advertising of the product. False advertising includes items like using exaggerating figures and false statements to market a product. Similarly, non-trading occurs when an investor does not use the proper procedures and exit a trading position before it reaches a specified exit point. Finally, the false billing refers to a company or broker issuing the same stock to multiple investors with the same amount of stock.
