Overview of the enforcement of the market abuse prohibition in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Like several other countries, the United Kingdom has a regulatory and enforcement framework in place to combat insider trading, as well as other forms of market manipulation practices. Put differently, a robust and relatively effective anti-market abuse regulatory and enforcement framework is in place in the United Kingdom. Consequently, and where appropriate, the relevant enforcement approaches of the United Kingdom’s market abuse regime will be compared with similar approaches that are provided for in the South African anti-market abuse framework. This is primarily done to, inter alia, isolate possible and applicable anti-market abuse enforcement approaches from the United Kingdom’s market abuse regime that could be adopted and/or integrated in the South African anti-market abuse enforcement framework. In relation to this, the role of the Financial Services Authority will be analysed first. Secondly, a similar analysis will be carried out in respect of the courts. Thirdly, the role of the self-regulatory organisations will be discussed. Lastly, final concluding remarks will be provided.