Chapter 3 - revisited Flashcards
Insider dealing - type of offence, max penalty etc
- Criminal offence
- S52 criminal justice Act 1993
- Must have intent and be proved beyond all reasonable doubt to prosecute (burden of proof)
- Max penalty is 10 years and/or unlimited fines
Market Abuse - type of offence, max penalty, how is it classified, what rules govern it etc
- Civil offence
- rules in UK MAR and FCA sourcebook
- Classified by the affect it has not by whether there was intent or not.
- Balance of probability used - easy to pass punishment
- unlimited fine in max penalty
Misleading statement and impressions - type of offence, max penalty etc
- Criminal offence
- Rules under Fin. Svs. Act 2012 - S89-91
- intent must be proven beyond all reasonable doubt
- max penalty is 10 years and/or unlimited fine - crown court
Insider dealing - 4 requirements of, what are the offences
Must be all 4 of the following to class as insider dealing:
* Relates to particular securities/issuers
* specific or precise info
* non-public info
* price sensitive
Criminal offences are to:
* Deal on inside info
* encourage others to do so
* disclose inside info
Scope of the law covers:
* Any financial instrument (defined under MiFID) trading on a UK/EEA/Gibraltar reg. mkt, MTF or OTF, NASDAQ/SIX/NYSE.
Insider dealing - excluded investments
- Bank accounts
- Commodity spot mkts
- spot and forward fx
- insurance products
General defences to insider dealing
- Did not expect the deal to yield profit (avoid loss) by trading on the info
- believed on reasonable grounds the info was already public
- would have acted the same way regardless of possessing the info.
- did not expect the recipient to deal
Special defences to insider dealing
- Price stabilisation rues
- market information
- market makers in the ordinary course of business
Insider dealing enforcement structure
- LSE (exchange) monitor transactions
- FCA prosecutes any foul play
Misleading statements and impressions definitions
- Under fin. svs. act 2012 section 89-91
- S89 - Misleading statements - lying to persuade someone to deal, concealing relevant facts in takeover docs, etc
- S90 - Misleading impressions - abusive squeezes, market rigging. Covers both recklessly created misleading impressions and deliberately created misleading impressions.
- S91 - misleading statements in relation to benchmarks
Defences to Misleading statements and impressions
- Reasonably believed that the statement or act was not false or misleading
- Acted in conformity with price stabiising rules or control of information rules (chinese walls)
Market Abuse Offences
- Person shalll not engage (or attempt to engage) in insider dealing to include amending/cancelling orders.
- Can’t recommend or induce others to engage in insider dealing.
- unlawfully disclose insider info
- A person shouldn’t engage or attempt to engage in market manipulation
- Market abuse penalties are effect based and require a lighter burden of proof to prosecute as it is a civil offence
Market abuse - FCA mkt conduct handbook guidance behaviour considered mkt abuse
Behaviour that is considered mkt abuse:
* Insider dealing
* improper disclosure
* Manipulating transactions
* manipulating devices
* dissemination
* benchmark manipulation
Market abuse - available regulator sanctions
- Withdrawal of regulated status
- Unlimited financial penalties
- public statements/censures
- applying to courts for injunctions and restitution
Times when you are allowed to engage in mkt manipulation - 4 points
Legitimate behaviours (safe harbours):
* share buy back programmes and stabilisation measures
* FCA Rules
* Takeover code
* Market soundings (requires a formalised process [insider lists etc], including disclosures, notifications of confidentiality and recordkeeping.
Reporting market abuse - what doc and what should the doc contain
Suspicious transaction and order reports (STORs) are used to:
* report suspicious transactions and orders (based on this information only)
* Firms must report suspicions to the FCA without delay and should not second guess whether the regulator would consider it suspicious - better safe than sorry approach
STORs shoud contain:
* Identify of the person submitting the STOR
* Description of the transaction/order
* Reasons for which mkt abuse is suspected in the order/transaction
* means of identifying the person involved in the order/transactions
* Any other supporting docs to aid the investigation.