The market abuse regulation introduced in 2016 aims to protect investors by increasing transparency in the financial markets and quelling market abuse in an effort to standardise market abuse regulations across the eu this new european regulation puts resolute measures in place to extend the scope of pre existing regulations. The market abuse regulation mar updates the regulatory regime for market abuse establishing new offences and implementing easier enforcement. The eu market abuse regulation eu mar came into effect on 3 july 2016 and was onshored into uk law on 31 december 2020 by the european union withdrawal act 2018 changes to eu mar were made by the market abuse exit regulations 2019 to make sure that the onshored legislation uk mar operates effectively in the uk. The provisions of the market abuse regulation mar will apply with effect from july 3 2016 this will involve a number of significant changes for aim companies bringing them more closely into line with the regime that applies to official list issuers the main practical issues for aim companies are