The FCA has released their annual report which can be found here. Included within it are sections on the application of anti abuse measures such as MAR. Examples include a section on market abuse on page 58 and others. The accompanying enforcement report (see here) also contains relevant cases and statistics. This article on the Law360 web site provides a summary of many of the contents of the reports, and notes that the FCA is likely to increase auditing and enforcement action over the coming year.

FERC have issued a large fine in the US against an energy trader for market manipulation, as report here written by Glenn Benson of  Davis Wright Tremaine LLP on the Power Magazine web site. The article describes how the company arbitraged the market design so profit from non generation scenarios, which was deemed to be a manipulation.  The article recommends regular training of personnel in order that they understand what constitute a manipulation. Given the number of new opinions being released in Europe, such as ACER’s recent “wash trade guidance” for REMIT (see here), the advice can be applied in many jurisdictions.

This article on the Reuters web site discuses a paper recently written by Nasdaq on the detection of spoofing. It highlights the challenges of distilling legitimate activity from potential market abuse.

Finally, ESMA has updated the MAR Question and Answers document, by adding an answer on managers’ transactions. The new version can be found here.