Watchdogs hold talks

Press, 13 December 1986, Page 34

Watchdogs hold talks

NZPA-Reuter London Stock market watchdogs from major world dealing centres met at a secret location outside London on Thursday to try to find a basis for cooperation in clamping down on share trading abuses.

Disclosures about insider dealing, in which traders or company officials profit from privileged information, have shaken Wall Street and the City of London business district in recent weeks. In the United States, financier Ivan Boesky was fined SUSIOO million after admitting insider dealings and has made lengthy confessions to the Securities and Exchange Commission, the American markets watchdog, on his activities.

In Britain, Geoffrey Collier, a director of Morgan Grenfell Securities who has since resigned from the firm, has been charged with insider dealing offences. The Department of Trade and Industry, host of the secret meeting of market supervisors, has also

launched an investigation into suspected misconduct at the brewing firm Guinness, during Guinness’s recent successful takeover of the British liquor group Distillers. The U.S. brokerage firm Drexel Bumham Lambert Incorporated has disclosed that the department had requested information from its London office as part of the Guinness investigation. At least half a dozen City of London firms have been visited by investigators, and the request for information from Drexel implies no suspicion of wrong-doing. Drexel has been subpoenaed in the United States as part of investigations into the Boesky affair. The meeting of supervisors brought together representatives from Britain, Australia, Canada, West Germany, France, Japan, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States.

British officials hope the meeting will encourage the establishment of bilateral in-formation-sharing agreements such as those the U.S. already has with Britain and Japan.