Ken: Protect Stock Exchange

Last updated at 11:16 12 February 2007


All attempts to take over the London Stock

Exchange should be referred automatically to

the Competition Commission, Ken Livingstone said.

The Mayor said he believed the exchange was so vital to the strength of the City that it should not be viewed as just another company.

Speaking after the defeat of the £2.7 billion offer for the British bourse from Nasdaq, the US technology stock market, Mr Livingstone-said: "In the modern-globalised world a city can lose its competitive edge extremely rapidly, as

the current problems of New York show.

"It is irresponsible that a shift as fundamental as the takeover of the LSE can take place without a thorough examination."

Mr Livingstone failed in his attempt to have

Nasdaq's £12.43-a-share bid for the LSE referred to the Competition Commission and is understood to have contacted the Trade and Industry Secretary, Alistair Darling, and Ed Balls, economic secretary to the Treasury, about the matter.

The LSE said it looked "forward to fulfilling its vision to be the world's capital market, without the distraction of illconsidered approaches which fail to understand the value of

the business".

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