About This Course

Trading on information the market does not have, or acting to distort a price, strikes at the foundation of a functioning capital market. Both are criminal offences, and both are easier to commit inadvertently than most staff assume. This course gives employees of Ethiopian capital market service providers a working understanding of where the boundaries lie.

The course establishes what constitutes inside information - the tests of materiality and non-public status - and who counts as an insider, including the secondary insiders who receive information indirectly. It then addresses market manipulation as a separate offence, covering the recognised patterns such as wash trading, matched orders, pump-and-dump schemes, and the spreading of false information.

Regulatory obligations, penalties and enforcement are examined in detail, alongside the preventive controls firms are expected to operate: restricted lists, information barriers, personal-account dealing rules, and pre-clearance procedures. The course then covers the reporting mechanisms available to staff and the protections that attach to whistleblowers.

The closing module deals with culture. Rules constrain the obvious cases; judgement handles the rest. Learners work through the habits and organisational conditions that make ethical decision-making the default rather than the exception.

By the end, learners should be able to recognise inside information when they encounter it, understand what they may and may not do with it, identify manipulative trading patterns, and know their reporting obligations.