Four Years of MADness? – The New Market Abuse Prohibition Revisited: Integrated Implementation Through the Lens of a Critical, Comparative Analysis

Abstract: The 2003 Market Abuse Directive (MAD) aims at streamlining the legal framework on insider dealing and market manipulation on a Community–wide basis, with a view to promote market transparency and integration. Nonetheless, the accomplishment of the aforementioned objectives depends upon the quality of the relevant legal rules and the consistency of national transposition. The present paper intends to provide a comprehensive analysis of the new market abuse prohibition also detecting and critically reviewing potential points of ambiguity and inconsistency. Moreover, by attempting a comparative analysis of the MAD’s transposition into the legal orders of several Member States (most notably United Kingdom, but also Germany, France, Netherlands and Greece) and discussing relevant jurisprudence,the paper also seeks to advance regulatory and supervisory convergence and foster consistent implementation of the new market abuse framework.