The Offense of Capital Market Manipulation

• Author: Manea, L.
• Position: Faculty of Law, Transilvania University of Brasov
• Pages: 121-126

Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braúov • Vol. 5 (54) No. 1 - 2012

Series VII: Social Sciences • Law

THE OFFENSE OF CAPITAL MARKET

MANIPULATION

Laura MANEA1

Abstract: The novelty and use of c urrent tech nology in stock exchange

trading operations are j ust a few reasons for which the capital market

domain is a controversial one, and the number of crimes already committed

in the financial market raises the i ssue of securing the supply-demand

relationship of capital and capital i nvestment protection. If in the Community

law there is no incrimination of market abuse, Romanian le gislature

sanctioned the capital marke t manipulation as criminal acts committed

intentionally in order to discourage such practices and also to increase the

confidence of investors in the financial market.

Key words: capital market, handling, dissemin ation, transaction, regulated

market, financial instruments.

1Faculty of Law, Transilvania University of Brasov.

1. Introduction

The normal functioning of a financial

markets requires meeting the demand for

and supply of financial instruments so that,

combined with t he large number of capital

market operators and market-real

transaction price, it would fluctuate

naturally and randomly.

From t he b eginning, we need to specify

that the Law no.297/2004 is a special extra

criminal law which regulates in matt ers of

the capital market the basic institutions,

establishes the main rules and the capital

market operations, sets out the rules and

obligations of market participants, the

administrative authority in the domain of

regulation, supervision and control of the

capital market, but it also contains rules on

the illicit market capital, liability and

penalties arising from non-compliance

with capital market rules. Regarding the

rules on indictment, it must be stated that

the legislative technique used in the Law

no.297/2004 is that of referring to other

texts of the law.

As an introductory note too, we remind

that art.244 of Law no.297/2004 t herein

includes in its text elements of illicit stock:

market abuse and market manipulation

capital. There are strong connections

between the two legal institutions, in

addition to the common body of law text,

and therefore in this material we intend to

address separately the facts of stock

market manipulation, just as the le gislature

addresses them in art.244 paragraph 5 of

Law no.297/2004.

2. Preliminary concepts and definitions

Before analyzing the infringements of the

capital market, we will focus on clarifying

some common terms that we will use in our

approach on the special offense regulated by

the Law no.297/2004 - Capital market

manipulation.