The Listing Regime is the regulatory framework for the admission of securities to official stock-exchange listing. The competent authority in setting and enforcing the listing rules (the general standard which gives issuers access to the official listing) can be either a public authority (e.g. the UK Listing Authority) or a stock exchange (e.g. the Italian Borsa Italiana S.p.A.). The main purpose of the listing rules is to grant adequate safeguards for the protection of investors. As a consequence, the issuer shall provide the competent authority with all relevant information and meet all the obligations resulting from admission. The competent authority has also the power to suspend or interrupt normal regular dealings in a security when it deems investors not sufficiently protected. Once the issuer is admitted to the Official List, an information sheet, called Listing particulars, must be published to enable investors to make a correct assessment of the investment profile. A notable example of Listing Regime, revised in 2010, is the UK Listing Regime for the admission to the London Official List. According to the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000 (FSMA 2000)¹, the power over the admission to listing has been transferred from the London Stock Exchange (LSE) to a separate body within the FSA, the UK Listing Authority (UKLA). The UK Listing Regime is composed of two listing segments, Premium and Standard. The Premium segment comprises the listing categories (there are eight "categories" reflecting the issuer and the security type) complying with the so-called super-equivalent UK obligations. In other terms, the Premium segment admission entails additional obligations set by the FSA that do not apply in other parts of the EEA. The Standard segment comprises those categories complying with the directive minimum standards, the requirements imposed by EU Directives (the most important are the Transparency Directive, the Prospectus Directive and the Market Abuse Directive) and that are subject to less comprehensive standards of disclosure and shareholders rights.
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¹ The Official List is available on the UKLA website http://www.fsa.gov.uk/ukla/officialMainList.do?view=true.
² The LSE maintains a separation between the notion of "admission to the official listing" and "admission to trading", providing that Securities are necessarily admitted to trading.
Link: http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/doing/ukla/index.shtml

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