FCA steps up crackdown on market abuse controls

Recent enforcement penalties reflect a wider push by the regulator to upgrade its data, analysis and supervision of potential abuse in the financial markets. As industry experts suggest that a significant number of laggards have yet to implement the Market Abuse Regulation fully, more fines may follow, reports Neasa MacErlean.

Compliance officers might have been aghast at the FCA's August disciplining of Citigroup for Market Abuse Regulation (MAR) breaches. The failures were so clumsy and widespread that they verged on the risible. And the £12.5 million penalty was the FCA's biggest to date of 2022. Then, seven weeks later, came Sigma - with its individual fines and prohibitions on top of the corporate fine. The Financial Conduct Authority is understood to be investigating other apparent abuses (which could include criminal prosecutions). Many compliance teams will probably now be re-examining their systems.