http://blog.canadianbusiness.com/when-is-an-alleged-fraud-not-a-fraud/ Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:52:10 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 http://blog.canadianbusiness.com/when-is-an-alleged-fraud-not-a-fraud/comment-page-1/#comment-145 Traciatim Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:01:06 +0000 http://blog.canadianbusiness.com/?p=196#comment-145 It seems to me that's near the stupidest defense I've heard of in a long time. If you went through a red light because there are alternate paths that don't have a red light did you still go through it? Of course you did, even asking the question is idiotic. It seems to me that’s near the stupidest defense I’ve heard of in a long time. If you went through a red light because there are alternate paths that don’t have a red light did you still go through it? Of course you did, even asking the question is idiotic.

]]> http://blog.canadianbusiness.com/when-is-an-alleged-fraud-not-a-fraud/comment-page-1/#comment-53 Marnie Tunay Tue, 29 Jul 2008 04:54:46 +0000 http://blog.canadianbusiness.com/?p=196#comment-53 The simple answer to the question is: if you thought you were committing a crime, then you were committing a crime - if you acted in concert with someone else: it's called conspiracy to commit a crime - and it's used every time the police use an undercover agent to nail a would-be contractor to murder. Furthermore, if you are an officer in a company and you had no reasonable belief in the legality of your act, then you are acting negligently, perhaps criminally so, depending on the consequences of your act. The defence is asserting that Drabinsky was behaving in accordance with a sincere belief in an accounting practice that was evidently not the industry standard. The burden is on the defence to show that Drabinsky had a sincere belief in the legality of the accounting practice at issue - and even if it meets that burden, (unlikely since the practice was selectively applied to "big" accounts), it will still only speak to his punishment, not to his conviction. The defence still has to show that the practice was legal - and since the accounting tactic is provably not the industry standard; and since the tactice can be proven to have caused great harm to the company: for those reasons, the defence is not going to succeed in meeting the burden on them to prove the tactic was legal. Marnie Tunay http://fakirscanada.googlepages.com/ The simple answer to the question is: if you thought you were committing a crime, then you were committing a crime – if you acted in concert with someone else: it’s called conspiracy to commit a crime – and it’s used every time the police use an undercover agent to nail a would-be contractor to murder. Furthermore, if you are an officer in a company and you had no reasonable belief in the legality of your act, then you are acting negligently, perhaps criminally so, depending on the consequences of your act. The defence is asserting that Drabinsky was behaving in accordance with a sincere belief in an accounting practice that was evidently not the industry standard. The burden is on the defence to show that Drabinsky had a sincere belief in the legality of the accounting practice at issue – and even if it meets that burden, (unlikely since the practice was selectively applied to “big” accounts), it will still only speak to his punishment, not to his conviction. The defence still has to show that the practice was legal – and since the accounting tactic is provably not the industry standard; and since the tactice can be proven to have caused great harm to the company: for those reasons, the defence is not going to succeed in meeting the burden on them to prove the tactic was legal.
Marnie Tunay
http://fakirscanada.googlepages.com/

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