In September 2012 Parliament passed a bill amending the Stock Exchange and Securities Trading Act, which redefined the offences of insider trading and market manipulation and introduced a new administrative enforcement regime to combat such conduct more effectively. The amendments came into force on May 1 2013.
The revision of the act is aimed at fostering the integrity and competitiveness of the Swiss financial markets and at ensuring compliance with international standards (in particular, the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force), in order to allow Switzerland eventually to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism (May 16 2005).
