Ken Rushton, Director of Listing at the FSA, said: "The feedback we have received so far has been supportive of the FSA's current approach and has highlighted the need to maintain the UK standards of investor protection. We have established theme teams in 4 key areas - corporate governance, continuing obligations (covering corporate communications and shareholders' rights), financial information and the sponsor regime - that we identified as requiring policy development and these have provided very valuable input."
Feedback
Many respondents were broadly content with the current UK listing regime, but did have concerns about the potential impact of European legislation.
The FSA has also received comments on the main themes:
Corporate Governance: Respondents considered that the Listing Rules played a valuable role in supporting the Combined Code. There was also support for the Model Code.
Corporate communications: There were mixed views about the selective disclosure of price sensitive information, although respondents generally agreed that some reform was needed in this area. The majority of respondents also agreed that the rules relating to the publishing of forward-looking information needed reform.
Shareholders' rights: There was strong support for these provisions.
Financial information: Respondents generally did not favour a significantly increased role for the FSA. Respondents were concerned about the proposal in the draft Transparency Obligations Directive for quarterly reporting. There was strong support to maintain the requirement in the Listing Rules for a working capital statement.
Sponsor regime: Most respondents supported the current regime. However some respondents questioned whether others could not undertake the role played by sponsors, and there was also a concern that the requirements for qualifying as a sponsor were onerous.
Next steps
Our next Consultation Papers will consider the themes and other issues in more detail. The review will also take into consideration the findings of the Government's Co-ordinating Group on Audit and Accounting Issues, published yesterday.
The overall timetable for the Listing Review has been re-aligned with the implementation of the relevant European legislation, and we currently intend to publish our next Consultation Papers in Summer 2003 and Spring 2004.
Background
- The FSA's Discussion Paper on the Listing Review was published in July 2002 and represents the first major review of the regime since 1993.
- The UKLA as part of the FSA took on responsibility for listing in May 2000.
- The FSA regulates the financial services industry and has four objectives under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 : maintaining market confidence; promoting public understanding of the financial system; securing the appropriate degree of protection for consumers; and fighting financial crime.
- The FSA aims to maintain efficient, orderly and clean financial markets and help retail consumers achieve a fair deal.
