Fraud with bonds: what are “empty shells”?

The term empty shell stems from the financial world. It can relate to securities (such as, for instance, trackers or bonds) that do not have a countervalue approaching the nominal value or official exchange rate because the deposit on issue has not flowed into the capital of the issuing entity. Special purpose vehicle An example from legal practice of an empty shell is a bond loan that is not fully paid up by the enterprise [...]