It’s August and the flurry of chatter and activity around the consolidation of world stock exchanges has all but come to a halt.

However, to add to the low-level mutterings about Sarbanes-Oxley rules, the NatWest Three, and American attempts to regulate the world, Angela Knight has written a concise summary of the present position of London in today’s UK Daily Mail.

Angela is Chief Executive of the Association of Private Client Investment Managers and stockbrokers, which has some influence with LSE’s board and stakeholders. She begins her piece in upbeat mode:

“The LSE is now attracting more overseas companies than anyone else — which is one of their huge successes of the last two years. … But London’s success is also a result of over-regulation in the US.”

Although change was necessary after the Enron and WorldCom disasters “… the way the regulators did it through the Sarbanes-Oxley law has resulted in a costly prescriptive set of additional requirements and accounting rules.”

Knight believes that the new move by the US to impose “extraterritoriality” is having a negative effect here because “[i]t means that even though you are not in America, somehow you have to abide by its rules.” She cites the NatWest Three as an example.

“Another example is that the UK allows the NYSE to put dealing screens on desks in the City”, while a reciprocal arrangement is banned by the SEC.

The UK is being swallowed by default while our authorities — no doubt taking a lead from Tony Blair — seem to be supine in defending our interests.

“The solution? … in this area as in many at the moment, America has not got it right and the UK must stand firm against its demands.”

But will it? While Blair hangs on, probably not.