Major Fraud Act Of 1988
Categories: Regulations, Ethics/Morals
The U.S. Government doesn’t like it when people try to defraud them. We can’t say we blame them; after all, who out there likes being lied to or taken advantage of? Yeah...nobody. Which is why, in 1988, Congress passed the Major Fraud Act, which significantly increased the penalties for defrauding—or attempting to defraud—the government.
Specifically, if the fraud or attempted fraud is valued at $1M or more, the fraudster is subject to between $1,000,000 and $10,000,000 in fines, in addition to facing up to ten years in prison. Oh—and this part probably goes without saying, but any money that the fraudster received as a result of their criminal actions is also seized and returned to the government.
This act ain't messing around.
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Finance a la shmoop what is insider trading and the securities fraud
Enforcement Act of 1988? all right well the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934
aka the 34 Act made it formally illegal to use inside information in trading
stocks amazingly that used to not be illegal or at least not explicitly so [People gambling]
and it wasn't enforced investing was well a clubby white man's insiders gig
and the boys took care of the boys well since people could make a lot of
money with insider information and thought they wouldn't get caught like [Boy peeing at a urinal]
well who's gonna know that I overheard the CEO of big company talking about a
merger in a Denny's washroom you know some folks pretty much ignored
the law well the 1988 law was basically Congress saying you guys were really [Congressman discussing the 1988 law]
serious about this so this new legislation added some hefty penalties
if you get caught as an inside trader people still trade on insider
information though and they still get caught and they go to jail and they lose [Jail door closes on man]
everything they have so he's got to realize some of us were just born to be
bad...