Financial Content

Hey guys, could I be sued for giving bad financial content? On accident, of course.

What do you mean by ‘financial content’? What context?

[FONT=verdana]If you mean bad financial advice, then the answer is Yes. If you hold yourself out as an expert, and you invite people to come to you for advice, and you encourage them to act on that advice, then a court might consider that you are a professional financial adviser (even if you don’t get paid for the advice). If someone loses money as a result of your advice, and if that person can show you acted negligently, you could be held liable.

Of course, it’s not that simple. Actual practice varies considerably from one country or jurisdiction to another, and the result will depend on how much you attempted to convince people that you are a trustworthy expert. If you had a prominent disclaimer to every piece of advice you give (for example, clearly stating that you are not an expert and that your advice should not be relied on), that might be a good defence.

The bottom line is that, if you are giving any sort of financial advice, you need to be very careful in what you way and how you say it. (By the way, this doesn’t just apply to financial advice.)

Mike[/FONT]

Depending on your country you may be breaking the law by giving financial advice if you aren’t regulated by the industry body (the FSA in the UK for example).
Exactly what is and isn’t “financial advice” varies a fair bit as well from country to country…

[B]Anybody can sue anybody over anything.

[/B]The questions should be:

What can I do to insulate myself? Disclaimers, legal entities, are you really qualified in the field?

And should you be giving advice if you are not qualified to do so?