ABSTRACT
If a straw poll was taken involving those reasonable men and women on the Clapham omnibus, most (if not all) of them would have some idea of what constitutes ‘insider dealing’. Putting to one side the fact that insider dealing seems to have been a problem from the earliest days of the share ‘market’ which became the London Stock Exchange,1 the notoriety this practice enjoys is probably due to the fact that at periodic intervals over the years, cases of alleged insider dealing have been reported in lurid fashion in the press.2 It is unfortunate that subsequent
reports of successful prosecutions have been much thinner on the ground and perhaps that is as telling a comment as any on the question of whether insider dealing is readily enforceable as a criminal offence. Insider dealing is, however, a known quantity.
