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The Financial Services Authority, which began its review of insider information during public takeovers last year, said in March that levels of market abuse remained a cause for concern, despite new rules.
It published figures that showed insider dealing may have happened ahead of almost a quarter of takeover deals in 2005, a year of heated activity ahead of a boom 2006.
"As a result of our thematic review we have identified a number of areas where firms could improve their handling of inside information to help reduce the level of leakage," Sally Dewar, FSA Director of Markets, said on Monday.
"All firms who handle inside information relating to takeovers should review the robustness of their own controls against the findings from this review and make any necessary improvements that they can make."
In a newsletter detailing the findings of its six-month review, the FSA said all the firms it spoke to were confident that leaks did not originate with them and called on them to be less complacent about the effectiveness of internal procedures.
It said firms should apply "more rigour" in deciding who needed to know about a deal, citing one firm that had 200 "insiders" on one deal, as firms come under pressure to complete more numerous and more complex deals.
