omission

Omission is refraining from acting or disclosing, see Brown v. Standard Casket Mfg. Co..

It can be used in various situations:

• "Failure to disclose the origin of a recording” in criminal law is defined as following: “failure to disclose the origin” can take place either on omission of the actual name and address of the manufacturer or an omission of the name of the performer or principal artist.
• Under property tax law, the word “omission” is used in the following way: “Where town clerk was personally and timely served with petition with respect to application to review real property tax assessment giving court jurisdiction and the official notice of proceeding, service of just one copy of petition rather than the statutorily required three copies was a mere irregularity or omission which could be cured.”
• The term is often used in the context of fraud and securities fraud, where an omission of a material fact can be the basis for liability. For example, in Litwin v. Blackstone Group, 634 F.3d 706 (2nd Cir. 2011), the Second Circuit found Blackstone, a large investment fund, liable for securities fraud where they omitted in their IPO registration statement that a significant portion of their decline in revenue derived from a single subsidiary. 

[Last updated in December of 2021 by the Wex Definitions Team]