5 Market Abuse

Abstract

This chapter assesses market abuse. Market abuse offences, in all of their possible forms, frustrate the concept of market efficiency by allowing undue advantage to the individuals performing the abusive actions, thus jeopardizing the development of fair and orderly markets. In turn, this is likely to harm confidence by undermining investors' beliefs that the market is fair, leading them to withdraw their investments. In Europe, the first European-wide legislative package was initiated with the adoption of the Market Abuse Directive in 2003 (Directive 2003/6/EC), with the aim of providing a broad framework that would address market manipulation and insider dealing practices in the EU. However, in the aftermath of the Financial Crisis in 2008, a review of the regime was required as a number of deficiencies were found. In 2011 and in order to address these issues, the European Commission adopted the proposal for the Regulation on insider dealing and market manipulation (MAR) as well as the Directive on Criminal Sanctions for Insider Dealing and Market Manipulation (CSMAD).