Has the UK's Financial Services Authority finally shown its bite? In March last year, FSA chief executive Hector Sants said: "People should be very frightened of the FSA". However, the words rang hollow - as there had been little evidence that the UK regulator could really make much of a difference. As of yesterday, that may have changed.
A general feeling has been that the FSA has gone after "small fry". Of the criminal cases pursued by the regulator, it has so far convicted a former general counsel at a small telecommunications company of telling his father-in-law of an impending merger, and a former corporate broking intern who passed on information to his own father.