NCJ Number
174895
Journal
Journal of Financial Crime Volume: 4 Issue: 4 Dated: June 1997 Pages: 287-308
Date Published
1997
Length
22 pages
Annotation
After a brief history of fraud in England and efforts to counter it, this paper analyzes the charges currently used for trying serious fraud and advocates the introduction of a general offense of fraud.
Abstract
There have been serious frauds in England in their modern forms since the late 17th century. They have provoked two legislative responses from that time to the present: acts that grant draconian but relatively useless powers to government organizations in an attempt to monitor the city (London) and regulatory acts that impose endless form-filling requirements and attendant offenses for failure to comply. Granting further regulatory or investigative powers at this stage would cause more harm than good. A possibility would be to have a general offense of fraud and then an aggravated offense of gross fraud. The general offense would apply equally to benefit frauds and city frauds, just as theft applies equally to shoplifters and armed robbers. The general offense would occur when "A person is intentionally deceitful, by commission or omission, with a view to gain for themselves or another, in connection with entering into a binding promise or performing or failing to perform a binding promise." The aggravated offense would apply only when an additional actus reus can be established, just as robbery or burglary only apply to thefts done in a certain way. The following definition should be used in conjunction with the general offense: "A gross fraud is committed when a person enters into a binding promise directly or indirectly concerning publicly listed markets, in order to commit a fraud." A table of cases and 95 references