Tribunal upholds FSA decision to fine firm £8m for market abuse

The Upper Tribunal (Tax and Chancery Chamber) has directed the Financial Services Authority (FSA) to fine Swift Trade, a non-FSA authorised Canadian company with global operations, £8m for market abuse.

The Tribunal described this as being "as serious a case of market abuse of its kind as might be imagined". The FSA said between 1 January 2007 and 4 January 2008, Swift Trade engaged in a systematic and deliberate form of manipulative trading known as "layering". The manipulative trading caused a succession of small price movements in a wide range of individual shares on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) from which Swift Trade made substantial profits. The trading was widespread and repeated on many occasions involving tens of thousands of orders by many individual traders sometimes ...