The Conundrum of the Market Abuse Directive Preventative Measures for EU Financial Services’ Integration: In Search of Equilibrium between Market Integrity Enhancement and Undue Regulatory E

The Directive 2003/6/EC on market abuse not only introduced a common EU legal framework for the prohibition of insider dealing and market manipulation, but it also adopted a wide net of ‘preventative’ or ‘transparency’ measures affecting a broad circle of market participants – including issuers, corporate executives and related persons, analysts, market operators and investment intermediaries – with the purpose of enhancing market efficiency and, by extension, operating as exante protection against market abuse. Providing a critical overview of the new transparency requirements, the present analysis detects potential regulatory or supervisory lacunae and inconsistencies and makes proposals towards improvement. The paper intends to advance the fine-tuning and streamlining of the EU market abuse regime with the objective of avoiding legal uncertainties or excessivenesses, fostering regulatory convergence and promoting efficient and consistent enforcement on a Community-wide basis.