Comment by afavour
It's still a failure in principle. The effects of this particular instance of the failure were minimal but it was still an accidental leak of (at the time) private information. They just got lucky.
It's still a failure in principle. The effects of this particular instance of the failure were minimal but it was still an accidental leak of (at the time) private information. They just got lucky.
Surely it was no longer UPSI (Unpublished Price Sensitive Information) after the OBR published it?
The OBR admits that they published it too early.
I am not an expert but I think that even trading on a leak is not unlawful as long as that leaked information was indeed made public (e.g. someone leaks to the media and the media then publish it), although it may have been unlawful to leak the information. The point is that insider trading is not allowed. It is no insider trading if the information is available to everyone.
> The effects of this particular instance of the failure were minimal
the effects are not minimal
if you're crooked: getting this sort of information early is potentially extremely lucrative
(why crooked? because trading on UPSI is illegal)