The recent establishment of Lebanon’s Capital Market Authority (CMA) has been a significant move towards creating the framework for improved regulations for the Lebanese capital market. The CMA has teams working on the licensing of financial products and on supervising both the business and market conduct of various institutions. The CMA is responsible for protecting investors from illegal, irregular or unfair practices such as insider trading.

The CMA is in the process of updating and releasing new regulations. Sixteen have so far been issued, covering disclosure policy, crowd funding, insider trading, derivatives, securitisation and collective investment schemes, as well as regulations concerning financial institutions and the suitability of those selling financial products.

According to Amr Sonbol, head of HSBC Securities Services for Egypt, Lebanon and Palestine, the CMA’s next steps include getting more companies to list and attracting more investors to Beirut. “The Capital Markets law calls for the Beirut Stock Exchange to transition into a joint-stock company. This would provide an incentive for shareholders to increase activity as it would be run as a for-profit business,” he says.