Market manipulation in the light of Market Abuse Regulation

The article discusses the issues regarding market manipulation. It presents the evolution of the market abuse regime with special emphasis on Market Abuse Regulation (596/2014) adopted on 16 April 2014, as well as it also presents changes in Polish capital market laws related to adaptation of the Polish legal system to standards established in the EU Regulation. The article includes a detailed analysis of actions resulting in manipulation together with analysis of legal conditions of market manipulation. It describes manipulative transactions, dissemination of information and other actions, as well as the fundamental notions of artificial price, false or misleading signals regarding the demand or supply and fictitious devices or any other form of deception or contrivance. In the article it is emphasized that the concept of market manipulation is always based on subjective actions of an investor. The actions of investors need to be analyzed in the light of authentic (genuine) economic interest of an investor - the concept of market manipulation is based on actions that do not have the authentic (genuine) economic interest, but their sole purpose is to influence the market mechanism and fixing of prices. The article also covers the practical aspects of market manipulation - the legal analysis is completed by major examples of market manipulation which occurred in Poland and in other countries