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Cal. CORP § 25541

This is the official text of Cal. CORP § 25541, part of California’s Corporations Code — governs the formation and operation of corporations, LLCs, and partnerships, and regulates securities.

Not legal advice. This page reproduces the official text of a government statute for reference only. Laws change, and how a statute applies depends on your specific facts. For advice about your situation, consult a licensed attorney in your state.

Official statutory text

(a) Any person who willfully employs, directly or indirectly, any device, scheme, or artifice to defraud in connection with the offer, purchase, or sale of any security or willfully engages, directly or indirectly, in any act, practice, or course of business which operates or would operate as a fraud or deceit upon any person in connection with the offer, purchase, or sale of any security shall upon conviction be fined not more than ten million dollars ($10,000,000), or imprisoned pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 of the Penal Code for two, three, or five years, or be punished by both that fine and imprisonment.

(b) Any issuer, as defined in Section 2 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (Public Law 107-204), who willfully violates subdivision (a) shall upon conviction be fined not more than twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000), or imprisoned pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 1170 of the Penal Code for two, three, or five years, or be punished by both that fine and imprisonment.

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.