New regulation helps Nordic watchdogs to fight market abuse

Nordic financial regulators have been given the weapons to fight market abuse more effectively in the form of Mifid II and market abuse regulation MAR, which came into force in the summer of 2016. The market abuse regulation MAR made insider dealing, unlawful disclosure, market manipulation and attempted manipulation civil offences and gave the Nordic watchdogs the powers and responsibilities for preventing and detecting market abuse. Meanwhile, the revamped version of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, or Mifid II, the biggest overhaul of European markets in a decade, took seven years in the making and was finally launched at the beginning of this year. Mifid II is designed to offer greater protection for investors and inject more transparency into all asset classes: from equities to fixed income, exchange traded funds and foreign exchange.

As a result of the new regulation, Nordic watchdogs have seen the number of reported cases growing substantially in some cases over the year. A spokesperson for the Swedish Finansinspektionen told FBNW that since the introduction of MAR, the number of reported cases of suspected insider trading grew from 218 in 2016 to 368 in 2017, while the suspected cases of market manipulation went up by over 80 per cent from 148 to 267. “More market abuse investigations are now conducted at Finansinspektionen compared to pre-MAR. Where the suspected breach is considered severe however, Finansinspektionen will hand over the case