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Plugging the leaks

06 September 2007 / Richard Burger
Issue: 7287 / Categories: Features , Banking , Commercial
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What can be done to clean up the UK’s money markets? Richard Burger reports

In the film Wall Street the US stockbroker Bud Fox impersonates the supervisor of a team of night-time cleaners to break into the law offices of a former college buddy to steal information about a pending merger and acquisition (M&A). Fox is, of course, a character of fiction, but such is the value of inside information that the UK market has seen its own breed of insider, for example Asif Butt, who in 2005 was convicted and imprisoned for insider dealing based on information he leaked from his role as compliance officer with a leading investment bank.

The City and its regulator, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), are aware that insider dealing and market abuse exists. On 2 July 2007 the FSA published the findings of its Thematic Review of Controls over Inside Information relating to Public Takeovers.

TRADING AND TAKEOVERS

The catalyst for the review was the FSA’s earlier work to measure the cleanliness of the UK markets.

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

DWF—19 appointments

DWF—19 appointments

Belfast team bolstered by three senior hires and 16 further appointments

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Cadwalader—Andro Atlaga

Firm strengthens leveraged finance team with London partner hire

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Knights—Ella Dodgson & Rebecca Laffan

Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

NEWS
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Bea Rossetto of the National Pro Bono Centre makes the case for ‘General Practice Pro Bono’—using core legal skills to deliver life-changing support, without the need for niche expertise—in this week's NLJ
In this week's NLJ, Steven Ball of Red Lion Chambers unpacks how advances in forensic science finally unmasked Ryland Headley, jailed in 2025 for the 1967 rape and murder of 75-year-old Louisa Dunne. Preserved swabs and palm prints lay dormant for decades until DNA-17 profiling produced a billion-to-one match
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
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