FSA hires more staff as it claims levels of market abuse are unacceptably high
THE Financial Services Authority (FSA) will hire another 460 staff as part of plans to crackdown on “unacceptably high” levels of market abuse.
The regulator is currently riding high on a wave of confidence after it successfully prosecuted Malcolm Calvert, the former Cazenove partner, last week. He was sentenced to nearly two years in jail.
According to Hector Sants, FSA chief executive, the body will become pro-active and monitor more areas of the economy, including law.
The new staff are likely to be made up of professional regulators and technical experts in quantitative analysis, risk modelling and business analysis and criminal lawyers and prosecutors.
Sants said: “Our benchmark should seek to have a market that participants really believe to be clean and fair and, as a general test, I think that if you were to ask the market participants, they would share my view that there is too much market abuse.”
The Conservatives have said they will abolish the FSA if they win the upcoming election, handing over its powers to the Bank of England.