Kinetic Partners has calculated that so-called "market integrity" was a top priority for the UK's Financial Conduct Authority in 2014 and in other jurisdictions as well.

In that year, the FCA fined firms and individuals a total of £1.23 billion for lacking "market integrity," accusing them of abusive market behaviour such as market manipulation, insider-dealing, foreign exchange failings and benchmark (i.e. Libor) manipulation. Kinetic Partners analysed publicly available data from financial service regulators in the UK, the US and Hong Kong to spot regulatory trends and assess their effects on the financial services industry.

The research also found that market integrity was the second most cited offence among fines levied by the FCA against either firms or individuals, totalling 10 for the year, behind customer protection, which accounted for 16 fines. However, despite fewer actions being taken for transgressions against market integrity, this classification nevertheless accounted for a greater share of the sum total of fines than any other category of violation during that period. In total, the FCA levied fines of £91.6 million for 'customer protection.'

Kinetic Partners also found that fraud/deliberate misconduct accounted for seven of the fines amounting to £1.59 million and compliance failure accounted for seven fines amounting to £149.1 million in penalties.

Outside the UK, regulators were preoccupied with market integrity as well. In the US, for example, the number of insider-dealing cases that the Securities and Exchange Commission embarked on in 2014 (52) was 18% higher than in 2013, when there were 44 cases. The number of market manipulation cases at the SEC increased as well to 63 in 2014, up from 50 in 2013. 2014 also saw the SEC commence its first enforcement action for market manipulation against a high-frequency trader.

Monique Melis, who set up databases to process transaction reports at the old Financial Services Authority and who is now in charge of Kinetic's consultancy arm, thinks that the obsession of regulators with market integrity and investor-protection because of pressure from politicians who, in their turn, want to show the public that something is being done about the problem. She believes, however, that the large fines imposed in these areas of enforcement act as a valuable tool for deterrence - a belief for which there is little evidence.

Kinetic is also advising firms to identify abuse and report their suspicions before they come to the regulators’ attention. Some think of this as a sage strategy; many others think the opposite.