fraud in law
- noun
- Formal
:
fraude en derecho
- The court determined it was fraud in law even though there was no evidence of malicious intent.
Examples
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He was found liable for fraud in law after transferring property to avoid creditors.
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Certain transactions can constitute fraud in law if they appear deceptive by their nature.
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The court found evidence of fraud in law during the trial.
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Is fraud in law difficult to prove?
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The judge ruled that the contract was fraud in law because it misrepresented the terms of the deal.
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In many cases, fraud in law does not require proof of the perpetrator's intent to deceive.
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Victims of fraud in law can seek restitution even if the fraudster did not act with malicious intent.
Synonyms
577
4.0
Deceiving someone to get money or an unfair advantage
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The constituent words 'fraud' + 'in' + 'law' signal a type of fraud occurring in a legal context, so a basic sense ('legal fraud' or 'fraud relating to law') is partially derivable by a learner who knows the parts. However, the precise technical sense — a legal presumption of fraud regardless of intent — is specialized legal jargon that is not predictable from the words alone, so the expression is not fully transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Fraud in law comes from the idea that a court looks at the action itself and sees a clear trick. Imagine someone moves property to another name to hide it; it looks like cheating, so the law treats it as 'fraud' even if the person did not mean to cheat.