To: Jeffrey S. Mitchell who wrote (692 ) 8/28/2000 9:05:39 AM From: StockDung Respond to cybersecuritieslaw.com/news->August 16, 2000 Increasingly, Cross-Border Online Trading Giving Securities Regulators Headaches Increasingly, online trading is allowing investors to trade across borders in ways that are giving rise to regulatory concerns, jurisdictional problems and major headaches among regulators. On August 16, John R. Emshwiller and Christopher Cooper of The Wall Street Journal published a report that detailed some of the cross-border difficulties that arise from online trading. Among many other interesting reports, they detailed the travails of an Irish couple who had never invested in securities before who were convinced by a securities dealer in Spain to buy US stocks using a windfall. According to the report, the couple invested $6,000 in a "troubled start-up" and that stake "is now worth about $90". Although the brokerage that allegedly sold the couple the securities "was based in Barcelona" Spanish securities regulators claimed that they had no authority to do anything because the brokerage did not market securities to Spanish citizens. According to the report, "[t]his outfit and its many affiliates operating under many names throughout Europe and East Asia buy shares in small, obscure US companies, some linked to [this outfit] through equity or other ties, and then sell the stock to foreigners who often are ill-informed about the companies they are investing in, the difficulty of trading the stock and their own lack of regulatory protection." cybersecuritieslaw.com
