The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, Patricia Hewitt, was keen to set a clear benchmark in November 1999, when advising Parliament on the need for greater powers to tackle insider dealing. “We are determined to ensure that the financial markets are open and clean places to do business,” he said. “London’s reputation depends on that.”
Some in the City appear to regard inside information as a perk of the job and its use, if criminal at all, a victimless crime that therefore need not be worried about. Historically they might have been encouraged in that belief by the patchy record of successful prosecutions for insider dealing. Between 1997 and 2000 there were just four such prosecutions, two of which failed. Although those numbers increased in 2001, in 2002 the position was back to five prosecutions, with only two convictions.
