Definition
Crimes by bankrupts against bank refers to a category of criminal offenses committed by persons in bankruptcy — or those who have recently been adjudicated bankrupt — directed against banking institutions or against the broader banking and credit system. The phrase encompasses fraudulent conduct such as obtaining credit by false pretenses, concealing assets from creditors, making fraudulent transfers, and presenting false financial statements to banks in anticipation of or during bankruptcy proceedings.
The term is not a single discrete offense but rather a cluster of criminal liabilities arising at the intersection of bankruptcy law and banking law. The potential offenders are persons subject to bankruptcy proceedings; the potential victims are banks and financial institutions that have extended credit, hold deposits, or are creditors in the estate.
Why It Matters in Research
This phrase is historically composite and rarely appears as a standalone doctrinal heading in modern law. Researchers encountering it in older treatises or index entries should treat it as a pointer toward two distinct but overlapping bodies of law: (1) bankruptcy fraud statutes, and (2) bank fraud and false statement offenses in the banking context.
In American law, relevant conduct historically fell under the Bankruptcy Act of 1898 and its criminal provisions, and later under the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978 (the current Bankruptcy Code). Federal criminal exposure for bankruptcy-related bank fraud is now primarily addressed through 18 U.S.C. § 152 (concealment of assets, false oaths, fraudulent claims in bankruptcy) and 18 U.S.C. § 1344 (bank fraud). These are separate statutes, and researchers must consult both bodies to understand the full criminal exposure of a bankrupt debtor who has defrauded a bank.
In English law, the extradition dimension is significant. The Rapalje & Lawrence entry references L.R. 8 Q.B. 410 and 4 Ex. D. 63, both English authorities addressing whether bankruptcy-related offenses were extraditable crimes under applicable treaties. Researchers using this dictionary entry as a jumping-off point for extradition questions must understand that the English statutory framework — including the Extradition Act 1870 and its treaty schedules — treated certain bankruptcy crimes as extraditable, but the precise scope was contested in courts during the 1870s–1880s. The citations in Rapalje & Lawrence speak to that English extradition context, not to American domestic criminal law.
A key research trap: the Rapalje & Lawrence entry is fragmentary, appearing mid-sentence as a result of the index structure and page break artifacts in the source. The phrase "RUPTCY LAW, (in extradition law)" is the tail end of a "BANKRUPTCY LAW" entry. Researchers should not treat this as a complete standalone definition.
Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence (1883) does not provide a complete standalone definition for this cluster of offenses. The surviving text is a truncated cross-reference noting that bankruptcy law intersects with extradition law, supported by two English case citations. This reflects the period's doctrinal reality: American and English courts in the 1870s–1880s were actively working out whether bankruptcy fraud fell within extradition treaty schedules that listed "obtaining money by false pretenses" or "fraud by a bailee, banker, agent, factor, trustee, or director." The cases cited — L.R. 8 Q.B. 410 and 4 Ex. D. 63 — likely addressed that classification question directly.
Rapalje & Lawrence's associated entry for "CRIMINAL" (defining it both as relating to crime generally and as a person found guilty following indictment) is the only definitional context offered near this entry. No American treatise of the era appears to have compiled a unified heading for "crimes by bankrupts against bank" as a term of art; the concept was instead distributed across bankruptcy practice manuals and criminal law treatises.
Jurisdictional Note
The English extradition law dimension of this term is distinct from American domestic law. In the United States, crimes by bankrupts against banks are prosecuted under federal statutes, as bankruptcy law is exclusively federal. In England, the comparable offenses historically arose under the Debtors Act 1869 and the Bankruptcy Act 1883, with criminal jurisdiction shared between bankruptcy courts and ordinary criminal courts.