As far as I can tell from the internet, to call an action a fraud requires that it has three elements.
- a false statement or misrepresentation of a material fact
- intent to deceive
- damages as a result of the deception
The first one is easy peasy, as there are plenty of records of falsehoods that were later edited out of existence, most notably the magnitude of the price support behind XPY. You can also add merchant support, etc. as things that were misrepresented.
The second is a little trickier. They can attribute a good number of the false statements to internal communication errors. The trick here is to get access to their internal communication. I'm guessing that those message board posts the CEO made prior to all of this, while not absolutely conclusive, might be enough to get a warrant for internal emails and private online messages.
The third one is trickier than it sounds. The most brilliant move they made was to convert those hashpoints to paycoins and let people sell them on the market. That reduced the number of potential claims, as most people who wanted out at that point sold their coins, at a profit, to those who wanted to stay in. This is in line with a lot of the private messages that have been posted on the board. The CEO didn't want customers who asked questions or otherwise didn't agree to follow him blindly. He banned liberally anyone who wasn't on board. That way all of the liability lands in the hands of a few true believers who are likely to blame external forces (dumpers, regulatory agencies, etc.) for their losses instead of GAW. They can probably handle a couple of malcontents with decent settlements. The people who didn't buy in completely pretty much all made money or broke even.
I have a set of my state's civil jury instructions in my office. Here are the elements a jury would have to find to support a judgment for Fraud (keep in mind, these instructions are negotiable by and between the parties to a case, their counsel, and the judge; these instructions are also pegged to a particular state's law): For the plaintiff to recover from the defendant on his/her claim of deceit based on fraud, you must find all of the following have been proved by a preponderance of the evidence:
1. The defendant made a false representation of a past or present material fact;
2. The fact was material;
3. At the time the representation was made, the defendant:
_(a) knew the representation was false; or,
_(b) was aware that he/she did not know whether the representation was true or false
4. The defendant made the representation w/ the intent that the plaintiff would rely on the representation
5. The plaintiff did rely on the representation;
6. The plaintiff's reliance was justified; and
7. This reliance caused injuries or damages tot he plaintiff.
Hope this helps.