About manipulative schemes, abusive behaviours and disruptive market activity.

Duration
1-day session, provided as introduction to familiarise learners, and/or provided as periodic training. In any case, obviously, the latest updates are included, as well as the most recent cases.

When?
This workshop is provided each year:

• The Thursday following the 3^rd Monday in February – Winter session
• The Thursday following the 2^nd Monday in June       – Spring session
• The Thursday following the 2^nd Monday in October  – Autumn session

Primary target group
Although anyone can manipulate the market by the dissemination of false or misleading information, in particular traders are exposed to the risk of manipulating the market (intentional or unintentional). Besides, brokers enter the market and could be(come) involved in an abusive scheme. Next, trade compliance specialists and market / trade surveillance employees at trading venues or organised markets places (including operators of balancing markets) and market participants have to prevent and/or detect market abusive. Therefore, all these groups should master details about behaviour and misbehaviour, the related characteristics, and the indicators to identify it.

Learning objectives:

• Understand the concept of market manipulation.
• Understand the prohibition of market manipulation.
• Become aware of prohibited behaviour.
• Being able to distinguish categories of market manipulation.
• Get a clear overview of manipulative schemes, disruptive behaviour and excessive pricing.
• Familiarise with criteria to detect abusive behaviour.
• Master conditions and criteria classifying certain activity as (suspicion to) market manipulation.
• Being able to interpret circumstances and understand why these would matter.
• Being aware of jurisprudence and sanctioning.

Content
The following topics will be addressed during the workshop:

• Market manipulation
  • Definitions
    • Artificial price levels
• Categories of market manipulation
  • Information-related manipulation
  • Order-related manipulation
  • Deal-related manipulation
  • Capacity-related manipulation
  • Technology-related manipulation
  • Algorithmic trading
• Abusive schemes
  • Spoofing & Layering
  • Wash trades
  • Marking
  • Cross-market manipulation
  • Marker cornering
  • Pump & dump + trash & cash
  • Quote stuffing
  • Momentum ignition
  • Dissemination of false/misleading info
• Commodity/energy-market specific schemes
  • Physical withholding, capacity hoarding, etc.
• Regulation, guidance & internal procedures
  • Absolute prohibition & obligation, but principles-based approach
  • Guidelines – Legally non-binding
  • Code of conduct
• Dilemmas
  • Conflicts of interest
  • Considering circumstances
    • Exceptions
• Fair & orderly trading
  • Rulebooks of trading venues
    • Exchanges
    • Market supervision
• Practical cases
  • Hypothetical cases
  • Actual cases
    • Jurisprudence
    • Sanctions