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FSA boss announces crackdown on financial market abuse

Published on 15 Mar 2010 under category: legal

The chief executive of the Financial Services Authority (FSA) has announced plans to crack down on market abuse.

Hector Sants told the Sunday Telegraph that levels of abuse in the financial services sector are "unacceptably high".

He insisted that although corporate fraud is no worse in the UK than in other major financial centres, more must be done to tackle insider trading and manipulation in the industry.

"Our benchmark should seek to have a market that participants really believe to be clean and fair," Mr Sants remarked.

"As a general test, I think that if you were to ask the market participants, they would share my view that there is too much market abuse."

He said the FSA will be taking a more proactive approach to regulation in the future and intends to hire an additional 460 members of staff to help it achieve this.

Mr Sants made his comments as an investment banker and his wife were charged with 13 counts of insider dealing between 2000 and 2009.

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