See here for an article on Bloomberg about the ongoing case of Fabiana Abdel-Malek, a former compliance officer at UBS AG, and Walid Choucair a day trader. It is alleged that  Abdel-Malek gave “tips” based on inside information to Choucair. The article  mentions that a “burner” phone was used, with SIM cards being switched frequently. This shows the difficulty that companies may face with monitoring for market abuse using communications monitoring tools. While in the past, many cases have been uncovered by monitoring channels such as chat and phones, it is necessary for detection software to offer an additional level of sophistication in order to detect “unusual” activity. The latest post on Bloomberg in relation to this case can be found here.

In the US a case against a programmer who supplied software to aid with spoofing has been dropped. This story on Chicago Business reports that all charges against Jitesh Thakkar have been dropped, following a mistrial earlier this year.