There are no exact individual laws that specifically address Corporate Fraud Crimes, but federal offenses such as wire, security and mail fraud exemplify the most commonly charged federal crimes. While wire, security, and mail fraud charges are always brought against individuals, the one outstanding characteristic placing these offenses into the corporate world is that the particular person being charged is an employee working for a corporation and is acting out their charges during their course of employment.

As in many other forms of white collar fraud, most objectives of corporate fraud are to accomplish a desired result by concealment, trickery, deception and/or dishonesty. The essential elements may be either through the use of the United States Postal Service or other private/commercial interstate carriers; placing this form of fraud into the purview of "wire fraud" is the use of interstate wire communications or other forms of facilitating communications, such as television, radio, microwaves, or the internet or by violations of federal law under today's applicable statutes include such acts as: 1) insider trading, 2) buying or selling securities not registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), 3) willfully making false statements or omissions of fact in documents filed with the SEC, and/or 4) engaging in interstate communications with prospective purchasers or securities, where such communications employ any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud, or contain false statements or omissions of fact calculated to mislead.

How have the courts defined Corporate fraud violations?
A. Deprivation of the right to a defendant's honest services is one of the types of scheme that satisfies the first element of mail fraud. Properly interpreted, "honest services" are services owed to an employer under state law and, thus, the government must prove that the defendant deprived the employer of such services. United States v. Caldwell, 302 F.3d 399 (5th Cir. 2002).
B. In order to establish good faith in a wire fraud case involving investment in a business, the defendant must prove that he actually believed the information that he sent to his investors, not that he believed that he would eventually pay them back. An instruction informing the jury that a defendant's honest belief that he will ultimately be able to perform what he has promised is not in itself a defense to the crimes charged is a proper instruction. United States v. Mabrook, 301 F.3d 503 (7th Cir. 2002).
C. A tippee assumes a fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders of a corporation not to trade on material nonpublic information only when the insider has breached his fiduciary duty to the shareholders by disclosing the information to the tippee and the tippee knows or should know that there has been a breach. A tippee cannot be held liable for a federal securities fraud violation simply because he or she in fact traded in securities or helped others to trade in securities based on the material nonpublic information. Rather, the key factor was the tipper's intent in providing the information. United States v. Falcone, 257 F.3d 256 (2nd Cir. 2001).

Possible Penalties:

For wire and mail fraud, one may be found guilty of a felony, put in prison for up to 5 years, and fined up to $250,000. If a financial institution is involved, one may be put in prison for up to 30 years and fined up to $1,000,000. For Securities Fraud, one may be found guilty of a felony, put in prison for up to 10 years and fined up to $1,000,000. A corporation committing securities fraud may be fined up to $2,500,000.

Most often, the State’s Assistant U.S. Attorney (AUSA) will secure a Federal Indictment from a Federal Grand Jury and charge a defendant not only with corporate fraud crimes, but also with securities fraud, wire fraud , bank fraud, money laundering, public corruption, or RICO crimes and conspiracy to commit the aforementioned crimes. One should also be aware that since 1987 parole has been abolished in the Federal System. Expungement (removal of conviction from public records) is also not available.