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In Batman The Dark Knight Rises, Bruce Wayne's account gets drained by fraudulent option buys that expire quickly. Is it possible for fraudulent options to be reversed?

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There are safeguards that should have prevented this type of thing in the real world... That said it would depend on the specifics of the actions taken. If it were successful then the best the victim could hope for is restitution plus damages. – user4127 Jul 23 '12 at 13:42
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@Chad, I think we should keep the movie reference. If I watch the movie and have a question about it, the movie reference lets me find the question. As written with "popular movie" I can't find the question searching. – Alex B♦ Jul 25 '12 at 16:48
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@AlexB If you have a question about batman then you should be searching on Sci Fi instead of Personal Finance. This is a question about committing fraud through options. Not BATMAN. – user4127 Jul 25 '12 at 17:05
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@Chad If I had a question about the stock options granted in Mission Impossible, I'd google for Mission Impossible stock options or similar. I think context is good, but that is just my opinion. :) – Alex B♦ Jul 25 '12 at 19:15
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@chad So, what are your concerns? Context is always good. This isn't a question about Batman. The question is stated clearly: Is it possible for fraudulent options to be reversed? There's is nothing wrong with providing some context or an example. Without that, this would be a very boring place. Not to mention that some questions require context. – George Marian♦ Jul 26 '12 at 3:17
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3 Answers

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All transactions involving fraud or theft are void by their nature. Title to your money never changes hands.

You are entitled by law to have assets stolen from you returned to you. In cases of negligence or broker malfeasance, lawsuits or SIPC protection are your primary recourse.

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There are few cases where trades were reverted because of a "technical issues", for example:
When BATS did its IPO its price went down to a few penny due to a computer glitch, because of that the regulators allowed the trades to be reversed as if nothing happened.
I think that some trades during the flash crash of the 6 May 2010 were reversed too.

However, if the act is clearly fraudulent, they can try to sue the responsible. If a tribunal were to condemn him to reimburse them and that he has enough money to pay for it, they could get their money back.
But think of Madoff, the people that invested with Madoff didn't have their investment reversed as Madoff didn't have the money to pay them back. The sames goes with most of criminal, crooks and even rogues traders.

Finally, before thinking of reverting anything, there are laws about financial firms to make them implements proper checks to avoid that kind of fraudulent activities as they are responsible for most of the operational risk, especially when it could impact both the firm and their clients. And if the firm doesn't comply with those laws, they are unlikely to get the tribunal on their side if a problem arise.

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I beleive, the only trades that were reversed in 2010 that I am aware of are ones where money was made as a result of exploiting the crash. These were basically all HFT trades. The stop loss trades were not revoked. – user4127 Jul 25 '12 at 17:10
The Madoff fraud had an extra component which is that investing with him was only open to "qualified investors". Those are people with net worth greater than $1 mil, or similar, and as such, do not get the same protection that regular retail investors do, as they are allowed to, and are choosing to invest in more risky deals without publicly available information. – Feral Oink Sep 12 '12 at 19:08
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Not having seen the movie, I don't know what you mean by "fraudulent options buys." But there are two possibilities:

1) Someone placed buy orders on the account without authorization. In which case it comes down to a protracted lawsuit to determine whether the broker exercised due diligence, or whether Bruce foolishly gave someone his password.

2) The options themselves were fraudulent. In which case the OCC is responsible for making everyone whole.

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In the movie the options were purchased with unauthorized credentials. – monksy Jul 27 '12 at 0:31

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