Overlawyered: Chronicling The High Cost Of Our Legal System

U.S. capital market regulation: a view from “Red Ken”

From a report in London’s Evening Standard Dec. 12 on the controversy over NASDAQ’s interest in buying the London Stock Exchange: Critics such as Mayor Ken Livingstone warn that the takeover could have very serious implications for London’s position as the world’s pre-eminent international finance centre. In a letter to the Office of Fair Trading, […]

From a report in London’s Evening Standard Dec. 12 on the controversy over NASDAQ’s interest in buying the London Stock Exchange:

Critics such as Mayor Ken Livingstone warn that the takeover could have very serious implications for London’s position as the world’s pre-eminent international finance centre.

In a letter to the Office of Fair Trading, Mr Livingstone says the proposed takeover risks the traditionally free-wheeling City being throttled by US-style regulation [emphasis added] and warns that investment in the Stock Exchange could be curtailed.

Note to the New Yorker, Fortune, and other press organs who claim Mayor Bloomberg and Sen. Schumer are being excessively alarmist about capital market flight: when even the Castro-fêting “Red Ken” says we’re overregulating in this country, maybe we’re really overregulating (cross-posted from Point of Law).

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2 Comments

  • “the takeover could have very serious implications for London’s position as the world’s pre-eminent international finance centre”

    Is this a problem for him? He wants to nationalize it maybe? Thanks to Sarbanes-Oxley overregulation London and Hong Kong and Singapore are looking to leave New York in the dust for IPO’s.

  • While people like to cite the fact that many of the largest IPOs of the last few years were overseas, they often neglect to mention that those IPOs were foreign, formerly state owned or still partially state owned, companies that matters of national pride dictated they be offered on local exchanges.

    And while many like to lament US style regulation, the export of US standards of accounting and our push for increased transparency in foreign markets via these regulations is in part responsible for the success of these other nations in competing with us.

    • By Matt