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There are people who are aloof about white collar crime, should they be?
Blue collar crime is worse.
Well, say it is insider trading. Why is that so bad?
Suppose you are working in a law firm, and you know that a company who is your client is going to merge with another company, so you buy up the stock of that other company? You would go to jail for that–but does it seem so bad.
Meanwhile, if you were the waitress who overheard them talking about it and you went and bought up the stock, it would not be a crime at all.
Does that make sense that one you go to jail and one is no crime? Are your morals really based on that distinction?
Why is theft any different if you wear a suit and tie? If I steal from a grocer by grabbing money from his cash register, how is that different than forging his name on a check (except that in the latter case, he might get his money back if he notices in time)?
There is no legal definition of “white collar crime” in either halacha or American law. The crime is typically fraud or theft.
The Goq
Aloof usually = never opened a shulchon aruch or bothered to learn Halachos pertaining to business and honesty.
Some people are very makpid about other areas of Torah but when it comes to business they have their own Torah they follow. People have to realize that we are obligated to keep the laws of the land. Dina dmalchusa dina.
It’s been a while since I took corporations in law school, but I’m pretty sure both the waitress and the lawyer in your case have broken the law. Insider trading based on information about mergers has different rules and doesn’t require a fiduciary relationship. (Quick googling suggests the case that matters here is US v O’Hagan)
That being said, yes, in a more vanilla insider trading case, there certainly is a moral distinction between taking advantage of information that someone entrusts you with with the expectation that you’ll keep it to yourself and taking advantage of information you find out by being a waitress in the right place at the right time.
Mosheemmes: I deliberately made the case a merger, not a tender offer, for that reason. I believe you are referring to Rule 14-e3.
YES. Without question but sadly some of our people treat it like they observe hilchos loshon horah. We are an Am Kodesh and shouldn’t be a party to white collar, blue collar or any crime.
Insider trading. In halachic terms, the offense is that of a disloyal shliach, who is hired to serve as the shliach (agent) and someone, typically in return for agreed upon compensation, and instead the shliach “double crosses” the person who hired him and make a big profit at his boss’s expense. — In halacha, this would be solely a matter of damages for breaching a contract of agency (using English terminology). In the United States, this has always been considered criminal, and since the money involved is so great they have made this into a serious crime if the agency involves ownership of large corporations (which are critical to the American economic system). Halacha respects the right of a goyish king (in this case, the American people who exercise sovereignty over their own country through elected leaders) to criminalize behavior that in halacha would be prohibited but not criminal — What popa_bar_abba may not understand, and something many people on Wall Street are infamous for ignoring, is that the owners of corporations are the shareholders, and the managers (which includes employees and contractors such as outside law firms) are hired agents of the shareholders and owe a duty to be loyal to their bosses and not enrich themselves at shareholder expense.
apekurma: So let’s say you are a homeless guy who is riffling through the garbage looking for bottles, and you see information about a tender offer. So you buy options in the target. That would be criminal under Rule 14-e3.
There is no shliach, no meshaleiach, no anything. In fact the people who own the target stock now might not own it when the tender goes through anyway. And the people who are selling options certainly don’t own it, and would be selling options on the market to someone else anyway. In fact, maybe you are just helping them because you increased the demand for options and made them more expensive.
If I come across a credit card in the trash, and use it, am I not guilty of theft? If I find the key to your house, and go in and help myself to a meal, is that not a crime? If the waitress overhears that you are going on vacation and forgot to lock the door (wife tell husband in restaurant “I thought you locked up! Oh well, it’s a safe neighnorhood, why go back) – is she not liable if she accepts your invitation to use her house.
In fact, virtually all “Insider trading” cases involve directors, employees, or their agents – not homeless people and waitresses (even ignoring that very few homeless people can raise the money to buy securities).
You’re right about 14-e3. I missed the distinction in your post.
In the homeless guy example though, rifling through garbage is, on its own, unethical behavior. Societally, we forgive it of homeless people for much the same reason we don’t blame them for not shaving regularly, but if you knew a guy who spent his days hanging out around Wall Street searching for trash with corporate information on it (or for that matter wandering the streets eavesdropping on conversations), you wouldn’t want him to marry your daughter.
Yes, it’s an aveira. The law of the land is the law, and breaking it is a sin.
From an article by R’ Shlomo Brody in the Jerusalem Post (which is worth reading and has many other sources):
“Other decisors, however, accept this principle in broader terms to include most matters of monetary and civil regulation (Beit Yosef CM 369). Consequently, Halacha mandates respecting traffic laws as well as intellectual property rights, including copyrights on music and videos.”
From another interesting article:
poppa bar abba- I don’t know the topic so well, but wouldn’t dina demalchusa dina apply even if every single detail of a law doesn’t make sense? Wouldn’t that make every white collar illegal act assur even if we can’t fit it in to the halachic lo tignov/lo tigzol?
Well, frequently it involves the agents of the other party, so the party they are agents of is not harmed. Like if you are the agent of the acquirer, and you buy up shares of the target.
Did you seriously ask this question? It is called White Collar CRIME for a reason. Does the end result matter if you take a gun and point it at someone to rob him, or rob him by swindling him?
It is called White Collar CRIME for a reason.
In Germany it is a crime to do a bris. In NY it will probably soon be a crime to do metzitza bpeh. Do you really care what those anti-semites think is a crime? If you want to know if a business transaction is stealing, call a rav. Or ask your local coffee roomaratzim.
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i believe it undermines the very essence of being a yid to take advantage of other people financially and those that trade on insider information or commit white collar crimes and causing all the rest of us who play by the rules to lose. if you do not understand that you do not understand how the market works.
and for those who practice technical judaism only, please see, ???”? ?? ????? – ????? ????? ????? ??? ?’ ?”?
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