UK Government Plans to Attract High-Growth Companies to London (with Lofchie Comment)

The UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has announced a series of proposals developed with the London Stock Exchange which are aimed at attracting entrepreneurs and high-growth companies to the London market. The proposals include a new route to the UK IPO market for high-growth companies, taking inspiration from the lightening of the regulatory burden for growth companies listing on U.S. public markets further to the U.S. JOBS Act. The measures also include a plan to work with the London Stock Exchange to widen the availability of equity capital for businesses intending to base their global operations in the UK.

Lofchie Comment: Isn't there a fundamental disconnection between the fantastically expensive regulations of Dodd-Frank, as well as European equivalents, on the one hand, and actions such as the JOBS Act and these proposals on the other, which might be viewed to some extent as acknowledging that the costs of compliance with regulations such as those imposed by Sarbanes-Oxley are too high and must be reduced? The JOBS Act and the proposals linked to this news item also recognize that having an attractive legal system is also a predicate for attracting businesses in the international competition for jobs. I don't intend for this to be a statement of attack on regulation generally (I confess that I am adamantly against Dodd-Frank, but Sarbanes is not my area at all). I am just looking for some intellectually-consistent regulatory policy (not just reaction to politics).