Professional Review of Mid-Market Capital Markets

As an outcome of the intro of the UKLR sourcebook in July 2024, both the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and FTSE Russell made substantial modifications to their rules. In July 2024, the LSE validated amendments to its Admission and Disclosure Standards to reflect the collapse of the previous premium and standard listing sectors into the new business business category.

It then released a summary and Frequently asked questions verifying its view when the final UKLR sourcebook was published in July 2024. Among the steps proposed as part of the Edinburgh Reforms in December 2022 was the establishment of the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce, chaired by Charlie Geffen. The objective of the taskforce was to think about the potential advantages of the UK relocating to a T +1 securities settlement cycle and describe how this change could be implemented.

, chaired by Sir Douglas Flint.

Building Resilient Trade Chains for 2026

In July 2023, the taskforce published an Interim Report (read our summary here) that made a number of suggestions, consisting of: legislation must be brought forward, and company short articles of association altered, as quickly as practicable to stop the issuance of brand-new paper share certificates; the federal government should bring forward legislation to need dematerialisation of all share certificates at a future date; the government must speak with issuer and investor agents on the preferred personality of "residual" paper share interests and whether a time frame should be imposed for the identification of untraced Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs); andintermediaries need to have an obligation, as a condition of participation in the cleaning and settlement system, to put in location common technology that allows them to react to UBO requests from companies within an extremely brief time frame.

ANSR July UK PRs

Digitisation would target noted companies with a view to lowering costs and waste, and enhancing shareholder communication. The report proposes additional measures to make sure that UBOs within the intermediated securities chain would have the ability to work out shareholder rights that are presently just ensured for signed up shareholders, as well as procedures to improve communication in between business and UBOs.