After a four and a half month trial, six individuals have been found guilty of insider dealing under the Criminal Justice Act 1993. They used price-sensitive information from the printers to UBS and JP Morgan Cazenove to place spread bets ahead of public announcements by companies including Reuters, Biffa and Premier Oil, and were convicted of making a combined profit of £732,044.59 between May 2006 and May 2008.
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23 July 2012
Print room insider dealers found guilty
23 July 2012
“There is little sympathy for those who do not make their full contribution”: Exchequer Secretary speech on tax avoidance, and consultation announced
David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, this morning used a speech at Policy Exchange to announce a consultation on:
“proposals to crack down further on those that seek to push abusive tax avoidance schemes and make it easier for taxpayers to identify such schemes when they are on the end of a hard sell by a dodgy promoter”.
On what avoidance is
The Exchequer gave the following examples:
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23 July 2012
Kay Review: Abolish quarterly reporting, rebate stock lending income and apply fiduciary standards through investment chain
The final report of “The Kay Rcview of UK Equity Markets and Long-term Decision Making” has been published today. The final report is here and the associated BIS press release is here. Professor Kay’s speech – with its emphasis that those engaged in the equity investment chain should operate to fiduciary standards – launching the report is here.
Professor Kay was asked by the Business Secretary in June 2011 to review whether the UK equity markets give sufficient support to “their core purpose of enhancing the performance of UK companies and providing returns to savers”. His answer is a pretty resounding “no”:
“…we conclude that short-termism is a problem in UK equity markets, and that the principal causes are the decline of trust and the misalignment of incentives throughout the equity investment chain”.
The report sets out principles “designed to provide a foundation for a long-term perspective in UK equity markets and describe the directions in which regulatory policy and market practice should move”, and then specific recommendations aimed at “providing the first steps towards the re-establishment of equity markets that work well for their users”.
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