Japan's principal market watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC) announced a three-year strategic plan in January
2011. Under this 2011-2013 plan, the SESC in particular commits itself to respond to globalised capital markets and to conduct market surveillance with a global reach in co-operation with overseas market regulators.
The SESC's annual report published in June 2011 suggests that the commission filed eight criminal market abuse cases with the public prosecutor, and further 45 monetary penalty cases with the commissioner of the Financial Services Agency (FSA) during the financial year 2010.
Therefore it is important to examine Japan's regulatory regime tackling market abuse, and then analyse the latest tendencies of each of typical market abuse categories – insider dealing, market manipulation and falsified corporate disclosure.
Securities regulation enforcement regime
The primary Japanese regulator investigating market abuse cases such as insider dealing and market manipulation is the SESC. Established in 1992, the...