Selected aspects of the regulation of insider trading and market manipulation in the European Union and South Africa

Abstract

The increasingly global market has given rise to increased interaction and interdependence among national regulators as well as investors in different jurisdictions. However, this has brought several regulatory problems to the enforcement authorities particularly with regard to the detection, investigation and prosecution of cross-border market abuse activities in many jurisdictions, such as the European Union and South Africa. Consequently, the European Union became the first body to establish multinational market abuse laws in order to enhance the detection and combating of cross-border market abuse practices. The European Union Insider Dealing Directive was subsequently adopted in 1989 and was the first law that harmonised the insider trading ban among the European Union member states. Thereafter, the European Union Directive on Insider Dealing and Market Manipulation was adopted in a bid to increase the combating of all the forms of market abuse in the European Union’s securities and financial markets. Similar anti-market abuse regulatory efforts were also made in South Africa. In light of this, selected regulatory aspects of market abuse in the European Union and South Africa will be briefly and comparatively discussed in tandem. Thereafter, some concluding remarks will be provided.