Carson Block is the Chief Investment Officer of Muddy Waters Capital, an activist investment firm. Muddy Waters conducts extensive due diligence based investment research on companies around the globe. Bloomberg Markets Magazine named him as one of the "50 Most Influential in Global Finance" in 2011. The following year, Muddy Waters received the prestigious Boldness in Business Award from the Financial Times. In September 2015, Block was featured in the book, The Most Dangerous Trade: How Short Sellers Uncover Fraud, Keep Markets Honest, and Make and Lose Billions, by former Bloomberg writer Richard Teitelbaum.
Muddy Waters gained fame in 2011 following the publication of its research on SinoForest Corp., which exposed the company as a massive fraud. Activist campaigns conducted by Muddy Waters have led to numerous financial restatements by companies, four de-listings and one multi-year stock suspension by securities regulators, over $100 million in restitution paid to investors, and over $50 million paid to regulators.
Block appears frequently as a commentator on Bloomberg Television, CNBC and the BBC. He has written op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, and New York Times on various topics related to improving corporate governance and market transparency.
Prior to forming Muddy Waters, Block was an entrepreneur in China and worked as a lawyer in the Shanghai office of the U.S. law firm Jones Day. In 2007, he coauthored Doing Business in China for Dummies, a primer on doing business in China. He holds a B.S. in business from the University of Southern California and a J.D. from the Chicago-Kent College of Law, where he has also served as an adjunct professor.