IT'S intriguing that it took massive corporate scandals and collapses for regulators to improve how companies disclose transactions by insiders.

After all, insiders taking advantage of their privileged knowledge to enrich themselves isn't new. It has been a concern of investors for a long time. Regulators pondered improvements for years, but didn't take action until after the collapse of Enron.

The biggest problem with insider transaction rules has been the lack of current information about trading by company executives, directors and others. Securities regulations in several countries have given insiders long windows in which to report their transactions, meaning that by the time investors learn of a significant transaction it has often been too late.

However, that's about to change, or has already changed in some countries. In the United States, for example, the reporting windows for insider transactions have been dramatically shortened. Insiders now have to report their trades by the end of the second business day following the day on which the transaction is executed. Under the old rules, executives had up to 41 days to file reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Now transactions have to be reported electronically, and the SEC has made significant improvements to the EDGAR database to accommodate electronic filing. The SEC has also improved the sorting capabilities of the EDGAR website to make it easier for investors to access insider filings.

More