The 2014 Directive on criminal sanctions for market abuse (i.e. insider dealing, unlawful disclosure of inside information and market manipulation) constitutes the EU response to a big threat for the integrity of the financial markets. The measures at hand reflect not only the constant evolution in the field, but they are unprecedented too, since only recently the EU has become entitled to enact rules imposing the obligation on Member States to criminalise certain misconduct. There are, nevertheless, some controversial issues, both in terms of criminal policy options at a supranational level and about the actual harmonization of domestic criminal law among so many different legal systems.