Attention has recently focused on the concerns of non-US companies seeking to terminate their US listings and exit the US markets. Those concerns arise most of all as a result of obligations imposed by the US Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, including mandatory CEO and CFO certification of disclosure and financial statements in annual reports and mandatory management assessment and auditor attestation of internal controls, all of which are perceived outside the US as highly intrusive, disproportionately expensive and administratively onerous. Increased home-market liquidity has also reduced the desire of many non-US companies to maintain a listing in the US.
On 15 June, 2004, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed rule changes designed to streamline the procedures for removing from listing, and withdrawing from registration, securities registered under certain provisions of the US Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Exchange Act). While the rule proposals would simplify the procedures for de-listing and de-registration of a class of securities registered under Section 12(b) of the Exchange Act, they do not address the substantive problems faced by ‘issuers’
