Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2000

Abstract

Currently, there is no formal SEC policy on when U.S. insider trading rules (or indeed Rule l0b-5 generally) will be applied extraterritorially. If one can glean anything from SEC action during the last twenty years, it is that the trading site - the use of U.S. market mechanisms - that counts most. Certainly, neither the trader nor the issuer need be U.S.-based. What I wish to do in this paper is articulate what I think is sensible enforcement policy for a nation - whether the U.S. or any other - to adopt. By this, I do not want to focus on the question of the extent of a country's jurisdiction to prescribe in accordance with the dictates of international law. Familiar principles of international law give immense scope to jurisdiction, permitting enforcement either when conduct in question occurs in substantial part in the regulating country or has significant effects in that country. But clearly, either through prosecutorial restraint or judicial limitation, a nation can choose to give lesser scope as a matter of prudence, comity and the wise expenditure of limited investigatory resources.

Publication Citation

19 Dick. J. Int'l L. 161-180 (2000)

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