Elon Musk was ordered by a U.S. judge to face most of a lawsuit claiming he defrauded former Twitter shareholders last year by waiting too long to disclose that he had invested in the social media company, which he later bought and renamed X.
In a decision made public on Monday, U.S. District Judge Andrew Carter said shareholders in the proposed class action could try to prove that Musk intended to defraud them by waiting 11 days past a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission deadline to reveal he had bought 5% of Twitter’s shares.
I’m not familiar with the law, but it seems like they have to prove musk intended to defraud them to win, no? So “I forgot” might be enough for musk to escape this, if the other party can’t come up with other evidence his intent was to defraud.
I don’t know what I’m talking about so this could be completely wrong.
Yes, many laws require a proof of criminal intent, although the nuances of that can be tricky.
Classic example: a convicted felon named Bob is charged with possessing a firearm while a felon. You are the prosecutor. You must prove the following to establish intent:
Meanwhile, you don’t need to prove these:
Because US law defines many things as “firearms” which zero people would agree count as firearms in common parlance, number 4 is a very common reason to go to jail. For example, spent shell casings count as firearms, legally, so you can go to prison for possessing a lamp incorporating a spent shell casing into the design for aesthetic purposes.
This isn’t a criminal trial, so intent doesn’t matter so much. The purpose of the trial will be to determine whether the plaintiffs lost money, and if so how much he owes them.