Six more countries join fight against cross border market misconduct: IOSCO

Date: Thursday, June 10, 2010
Author: Investment Executive

Six countries are signing onto a co-operation agreement between securities regulators that aims to fight cross-border market misconduct.

At its annual conference in Montreal, the International Organization of Securities Commissions announced Tuesday that six regulators have been invited to become full signatories of its Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding concerning Consultation, Cooperation and the Exchange of Information. South Korea, Uruguay, Iceland, the Maldives, Saudi Arabia and Syria are to become signatories to the memorandum.

The memorandum provides a mechanism through which securities regulators share investigative material with each other, such as beneficial ownership information, transaction records, and banking and brokerage records. It sets out specific requirements for the exchange of information, ensuring that domestic banking secrecy laws or regulations don’t prevent the provision of information between regulators.

There are now 67 jurisdictions that have been accepted as signatories to the MMoU, and another 43 jurisdictions have been through the full verification process and are now expected to work to remove the impediments to full signatory status.

“It is a great privilege to announce that IOSCO has further increased the number of jurisdictions who meet the accepted international standard for securities enforcement cooperation as set out in the IOSCO MMoU,” says Jane Diplock, chairman of IOSCO’s executive committee.

“This is further proof of IOSCO’s members’, and their governments’, commitment to protecting investors and the integrity of global capital markets from the risks posed by cross-border market misconduct. The expansion of the network of signatories will help to reduce the ability of offenders to evade detection where activities take place across different jurisdictions.”