US regulators have won a reputation for tracking down perpetrators of improper trading and punishing them.
John Coffee, a Columbia University law professor who has written a paper comparing the FSA and SEC, said the SEC devotes nearly 40 per cent of its budget to enforcement compared with 12 per cent for the FSA.
"The FSA is much more concerned about attracting business to the London markets than it is about being an enforcement czar," he said. However, the FSA rejected the claim.
"The comparison is invidious as the SEC has a much narrower remit than the FSA, which regulates the entire financial services industry in the UK, both retail and wholesale," a spokesman said. "The FSA is not in the business of attracting business to the London market. Our job is to ensure clean, efficient and orderly markets, and to protect consumers."
The SEC brought 46 insider trading cases in the last fiscal year, taking its total for the past five years to 247 cases.
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