European companies are causing a bit of a stir in the US, with a flurry of well-known names making good on their threats to de-list from the New York Stock Exchange. Having totted up the multi-million pound costs of complying with Sarbanes-Oxley, they have also terminated their US reporting regulations by de-registering with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
What started out as a trickle of companies a couple of years ago, has now grown to a steady stream, large enough to be making the SEC contemplate further rule changes. There has been a lot of talk of sledgehammers, and nuts on the part of Europe’s disgruntled US-listed companies.
