I caught the news yesterday that the USA Security Exchanges Commission (SEC) has had the go ahead from the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) that they can go ahead and takeover the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
Yet another piece of the UK transferring into overseas control, German based RWE now owns Thames Water, USA investment bank Goldman Sachs may soon own Associated British Ports portfolio of some of the UK’s important sea ports, while the British Airports Authority (BAA) will end up being part of Spain’s Grupo Ferrovial empire, which incidentally has netted some of the London based finance houses, £315m from the deal!
Going back to the LSE takeover, I wonder how many UK based companies will now have to comply with all of the strict SEC company reporting regulations despite the FSA’s chairman, Sir Callum McCarthy‘s denials. We’ve all heard of mission creep; well stand by for regulation creep as the USA will surely exercise its control via the SEC/LSE tie-up to become the controller of what any UK listed company can or cannot do.
Yes, we have to put in place tight regulations that stops another Enron or other such examples, but surely the UK can do this without the help of another over zealous USA control freak organisiation, in the form of the SEC, quite apart from the costs that will be incurred by the those UK listed companies, which of course will mean a lot of money for the other ‘gents’ in the city! Maybe that really was the plan all along!
Tags: SEC, LSE, BAA, Mission Creep, Enron
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