1 Evolving Regulation

Subject(s):

Insider trading — Market abuse — Market Abuse Directive (MAD) — Financial stability — UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA)

This chapter begins with a background on financial services regulation in the UK. The principal responsibility for regulating financial market conduct generally, and for preventing, investigating, and punishing market abuse falls on the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA). The aims of the FCA are both to preserve financial stability and the expection that it will remain stable. One of the principal ways that this is done is by preventing what is called ‘market abuse’, which can generally be described as improper market behaviour, such as: insider trading; various techniques of market manipulation; and any other behaviour interfering with the fair and efficient operation of financial markets. The remainder of the chapter discusses the evolution of market abuse regulation; the adoption and implementation in the UK of the new EU Market Abuse and Insider Trading Directive, the Market Abuse Regulation, and for wholesale energy markets, the REMIT, international complications, and other levels of uncertainty.