Govt to crack down on financial rumour spreaders

The Federal Government is trying to crack down on people deliberately spreading false rumours about companies with the aim of driving down their share price.

The Minister for Corporate Law, Nick Sherry, has asked the independent Corporations and Market Advisory Committee to examine the issue by the middle of next year.

Senator Sherry says there have been some shocking cases of people taking advantage of the financial turmoil to damage the reputations of good companies.

"Concerns have been raised that some market participants both here and abroad have been spreading false or misleading information in respect of certain securities in order to take advantage of artificial changes in their price induced by the rumours," he said.

"Numerous members of corporate Australia have raised examples of this with me over the last year."

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Wed 19th November 2008 - 03:31pm