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Insider trading in the run-up to merger announcements. Before and after the UK's Financial Services Act 2012

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journal contribution
posted on 2021-06-18, 14:32 authored by Rebecca Pham, Marcel Ausloos
After the 2007/2008 financial crisis, the UK government decided that a change in regulation was required to amend the poor control of financial markets. The Financial Services Act 2012 was developed as a result in order to give more control and authority to the regulators of financial markets. Thus, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) succeeded the Financial Services Authority (FSA). An area requiring an improvement in regulation was insider trading. Our study examines the effectiveness of the FCA in its duty of regulating insider trading through utilising the event study methodology to assess abnormal returns in the run-up to the first announcement of mergers. Samples of abnormal returns are examined on periods, under regulation either by the FSA or by the FCA. Practically, stock price data on the London Stock Exchange from 2008 to 2012 and from 2015 to 2019 are investigated. The results from this study determine that abnormal returns are reduced after the implementation of the Financial Services Act 2012; prices are also found to be noisier in the period before the 2012 Act. Insignificant abnormal returns are found in the run-up to the first announcement of mergers in the 2015–2019 period. This concludes that the FCA is efficient in regulating insider trading.

History

Author affiliation

School of Business

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

International Journal of Finance and Economics

Publisher

Wiley

issn

1076-9307

eissn

1099-1158

Acceptance date

2020-11-03

Copyright date

2020

Available date

2021-06-18

Language

English

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