Below I will examine these three components.
5.1. The Protected Social Value and the Severity of the Offense - Determining the Conceptual Severity of the Offense
The defendants were convicted of many offenses of misleading details in financial statements in order to mislead a reasonable investor – offenses under Section 53(a)(4) of the Securities Law and many offenses of false registration in corporate documents, offenses under Section 423 of the Penal Law.
These are violations of the Securities Law and the Penal Law, which deal with reporting and transparency in the financial statements of corporations in general, and public corporations in particular. The protected value is the integrity of the capital market, which is the basis for the economic activity of the economy as a whole. The proof of this is the investors' reliance on misleading financial statements and the increase in the value of the shares during the relevant period. The capital market must be conducted according to the real situation of the companies, and activity such as the one carried out by the defendants harms the foundation of the capital market. In this case, the defendants severely and over time violated the protected values underlying these offenses.
5.2. Determining the concrete severity of the offense by examining the circumstances related to its commission that must be taken into account in determining the scope of punishment
Section 40T of the Penal Law lists an indefinite list of circumstances relating to the commission of the offense, which the court must take into account when determining the scope of punishment. In other words, at this stage, the severity of the concrete offense committed in the case before me by the defendant must be examined, in light of circumstances that are not among the elements of the offense, but were committed in the concrete case. Below I will relate to the circumstances relevant to the defendants' case.
5.2.1 The planning that preceded the commission of the offense (section 40T(a)(1) )