Hong Kong’s regulator has earned a reputation as a strong force in the past year, aggressively prosecuting misconduct and securing a number of insider trading convictions.Having put several financial professionals behind bars in 2009, the Securities and Futures Commission this week opened a new front in its war on insider dealing.On Monday, the regulator applied for a court order to ban Tiger Asia Management, a New York-based hedge fund, from trading listed securities or derivatives in Hong Kong.The action against Tiger Asia, which the SFC accuses of insider dealing, marks the first time it has attempted to exclude a company from trading in the Hong Kong market.“The SFC’s actions in relation to Tiger Asia take regulatory enforcement to the next level,” Paul Li, a partner in Hong Kong at Simmons & Simmons, the law firm, said. “The market is sitting up and taking notice.”The move is the second part of an investigation the SFC announced in August when it accused Tiger Asia and three of its officers – Bill Hwang, Raymond Park and William Tomita – of insider dealing and manipulation in the shares of China Construction Bank.“Until recently you would never have seen the SFC going after anyone outside Hong Kong,” George Long, founder of Lim Advisors, the Hong Kong-based hedge fund, said.The regulator applied for an injunction to freeze HK$29.9m (US$3.8m) in assets of Tiger Asia and the three officers, equal to the profit the fund allegedly made from short selling CCB shares using confidential information.The case is pending. Tiger Asia said it would continue “to vigorously contest the SFC’s accusations of wrongdoing”.The SFC declined to comment.Until last year, the SFC had shied away from freezing the assets of suspected insider dealers. “It is no longer just about punishing wrongdoers,” Mr Li said. “The SFC is now taking steps to safeguard the interests of participants who may have been disadvantaged by market misconduct.”The SFC’s campaign against insider dealing passed a milestone last April when Ma Hon Yeung, a former investment banker at BNP Paribas Peregrine Capital, became the first person to be jailed in Hong Kong for the offence.Mr Ma was sentenced to 26 months’ imprisonment and ordered to pay a fine of HK$230,000. Mr Ma’s girlfriend and three family members were also convicted.“The message should now be loud and clear that insider dealers will go to jail,” Martin Wheatley, SFC chief executive, said after the conviction.More people have been put behind bars since then, including Du Jun, a former managing director at Morgan Stanley Asia. Mr Du was jailed for seven years in September for insider dealing in shares of Citic Resources.In seeking to ban Tiger Asia from the Hong Kong market, the SFC is taking its enforcement activities beyond the prosecution of individuals. The next step, legal experts believe, is for the SFC to increase its scrutiny of institutions and the Chinese walls in place to contain confidential, price- sensitive information.Tiger Asia was founded by Mr Hwang in 2001 and is one of Asia’s biggest hedge fund investors. All its employees are in New York. Mr Hwang is one of the “Tiger cubs” – hedge fund managers who worked under Julian Robertson, founder of Tiger Management.