Recent weeks have provided proof of the Financial Service Authority's (FSA) focus on both criminal insider dealing and civil market abuse.

Christian Littlewood, a senior investment banker, and his wife have been charged with 13 counts of insider dealing and one count of conspiracy to commit insider dealing. The case demonstrates the FSA's increased use of its criminal powers to tackle market abuse and, for the first time, sees the FSA seeking extradition of a suspect from abroad to face criminal charges of insider dealing in the UK, with a third suspect having been arrested in the Comoros Islands. The FSA is also pursuing two other insider dealing prosecutions.

The case follows a number of recent insider dealing convictions including that of Malcolm Calvert, formerly of Cazenove, last week for five counts of insider dealing for which he received a 21 month prison sentence. The FSA also announced that, as part of an agreed settlement, it had imposed a financial penalty for market abuse on Bertie Hatcher who had acted in concert with Mr Calvert. Mr Hatcher provided assistance to the FSA in the investigation into Mr Calvert and his fine was limited to a disgorgement of profits. Mr Calvert appears not to have co-operated to the same extent and the identity of the person at Cazenove who provided the inside information is unknown. The FSA has indicated an intention to undertake more plea bargaining of this kind in the future in order to encourage others to come forward and assist in the investigation and prosecution of insider dealing and market abuse.

The FSA also published, on 1 March 2010, new guidance on penalties which applies to misconduct taking place on or after 6 March 2010. The guidance clarifies that the minimum GB£100,000 penalty originally proposed for market abuse will be restricted to the most serious cases, but would have allowed the FSA to multiply Mr Hatcher's penalty by up to four times. It will be interesting to see how the new policy will be applied to future cases and how settlements such as Mr Hatcher's will be accommodated.