Saturday 28 July 2012

Jail for UK insider trading

Great job by the UK watchdog, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), jail sentences (up to three and a half year) and fines for 6 people after a very extensive investigation:
  • The four-and-a-half-month trial cost the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) £5 million — the longest and most complex prosecution to date in its “credible deterrence” drive against market abuses
  • The case marked a strategic push into so-called digital forensics, whereby experts use the latest technology to sift through emails, telephone records and computers
  • The judge praised the watchdog’s meticulous and exhaustive investigation
  • It culminated in raids and arrests in July 2008, when a search of Paresh Shah’s home uncovered a wealth of evidence
  • The day-traders used information from the “drop box” to place spreadbets on 500 different stocks.
  • The ring used 130 trading accounts, usually in third-party names, making it hard initially to identify the culprits
  • The FSA sifted through 250,000 emails and 375,000 lines of telephone data, and checked 15,000 news stories to show that the traders could not have obtained the information from the press
Will Malaysia's investigation into the KL Heavyweight insider trading case be on par?

Interesting comment: "Last month the FSA said that a fifth of company announcements in Britain were still preceded by unexplained share price movement, indicating possible insider trading."

How would this compare to Malaysia? I hope Bursa Malaysia would come with similar statistics, but I am afraid that the percentage of possible insider trading will be much higher, possibly more than fifty percent.

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