Exchange's plea over EU listing rules

THE London Stock Exchange could cross swords with the Treasury after the market joined forces with small firms opposing a Brussels directive to standardise company listing and disclosure rules across Europe.

The Exchange has written to the European Commission asking it not to ride roughshod over smaller business interests. LSE chairman Don Cruickshank will reinforce this point next week at a meeting with EU single market commissioner Fritz Bolkestein.

There are concerns that the higher standards of disclosure envisaged in the directive would hurt junior markets such as AIM and add £150,000 to annual costs for firms. The directive remains at the draft stage.

Cruickshank, and LSE chief executive Clara Furse, were on the circulation list of a letter sent by the small Quoted Companies Alliance in August opposing the directive.

Senior executives from 56 QCA firms have put their names to an open letter warning that the proposals 'would be little short of disastrous'. The new regulation, though, is supported broadly by the Treasury and many larger stockbrokers.