Legal Definitions - defraud

Defraud means to trick or deceive someone for personal gain. In legal terms, it means committing fraud that leads to civil or criminal liability.

For example, if a company fails to disclose relevant information to new creditors of a previous billion dollar loan, this could be a fraudulent failure to disclose if the lack of disclosure was intended to get the company better financing terms with the new creditors.

In civil litigation, allegations of fraud might be based on a misrepresentation of fact that was either intentional or negligent. A claim for fraud based on a negligent misrepresentation differs in that the speaker of the false statement may have actually believed it to be true; however, the speaker lacked reasonable grounds for that belief.

In criminal law, fraud usually takes very specific forms, such as bankruptcy fraud, credit card fraud, or healthcare fraud. Some criminal fraud statutes might be classified under laws forbidding larceny, others under forgery, and others as a crime covered by laws regarding a specific industry, like insurance or banking laws.

Suspicions of criminal fraud should be reported to law enforcementauthorities.