Eric Gibbs
A founding partner at the firm, Eric has negotiated groundbreaking settlements that resulted in reforms to business practices, and have favorably shaped the laws impacting plaintiffs’ legal rights.
Accounting fraud involves the deliberate manipulation and falsification of a company’s accounting records to make the company’s performance appear better than it really is. Accounting fraud is illegal, often leading to securities violations and harming investors and others in the process.
How Does Accounting Fraud Happen?
There are many ways that companies and accountants can manipulate the perception of a company’s value and performance (often through false or misleading corporate disclosures) and other public statements. These accounting tactics include:
- overstating revenue;
- understating expenses;
- misusing corporate funds;
- overstating corporate assets; and
- underreporting liabilities.
Accounting fraud can significantly harm investors who are denied access to full, accurate information about a publicly-traded company’s financial information, while company insiders and others may unfairly profit or avoid major losses (often through illegal insider trading).
Enforcement & Penalties for Accounting Fraud
Fraud in accounting has become more pervasive in recent years, leading to SEC investigations, criminal charges, and civil lawsuits against some major corporations, their directors, and accounting firms.
Under federal securities laws and related SEC rules (such as SEC Rule 10b-5), investors and others harmed by fraudulent accounting practices can seek recourse through civil lawsuits. Civil lawsuits can be brought against not only the corporation involved in accounting fraud, but also individuals involved in the process.
SEC Whistleblowers
Gibbs Law Group encourages persons who know about possible securities violation to contact the firm. Under the SEC whistleblower laws promulgated under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, whistleblowers may be receive a reward of up to 30 percent of the recovery for information leading to a successful enforcement action by the SEC and are protected from employer retaliation. If you believe that you have information about a securities violation, please contact us.
Meet Our Team
Dave Stein
David Stein represents clients in federal and state cases nationwide, ranging from securities and financial fraud class actions, to product liability, privacy, and data breach suits.
Michael Schrag
Michael Schrag has nearly 20 years of experience representing individual and small business plaintiffs in a broad range of complex class actions against large corporations.
Amanda Karl
Amanda represents employees, consumers, and sexual assault survivors in complex class action lawsuits nationwide. She also leads the firm’s Voting Rights Task Force.
Our Financial Fraud Experience
Gibbs Law Group’s financial fraud and securities lawyers have more than two decades of experience prosecuting fraud. Our attorneys have successfully litigated against some of the largest companies in the United States, and we have recovered more than a billion dollars on our clients’ behalf.
We have fought some of the most complex cases brought under federal and state laws nationwide, and our attorneys have been recognized with numerous awards and honors for their accomplishments, including Top 100 Super Lawyers in Northern California, Top Plaintiff Lawyers in California, The Best Lawyers in America, and rated AV Preeminent (among the highest class of attorneys for professional ethics and legal skills).