News digest for July 12, 2006

Germany and Italy gang up on France in a joint bid for Euronext exchange
The Frankfurt exchange appears to be negotiating a deal with the Milan Borsa to mount a joint bid for Euronext. By dressing up its latest approach on the Paris-based exchange as a broader European venture, Frankfurt clearly hopes to finally break down Euronext’s stubborn resistance.

Thomson scoops up Georgeson Shareholder Analytics
Steve Roycroft, executive vice president and global managing director of Thomson’s corporate services business, points out that the acquisition is a big boost for Thomson in Europe and Asia-Pacific, where Computershare has been dominant. Also, the referral arrangement gives Thomson a partner in proxy and governance services, which are now red hot.

SEC Moves Forward on Sarbanes-Oxley 404 Improvements
The Securities and Exchange Commission, in another step toward improving the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley investor protection law, today published a Concept Release as a prelude to its forthcoming guidance for management in assessing a company’s internal controls for financial reporting.

SEC: More Questions than Answers on 404
Two months and one day after a contentious roundtable in which companies voiced their continuing displeasure with Section 404 of the Sarbanes Oxley Act, the Securities and Exchange Commission has responded, although primarily with more questions for public companies.

Firefox Usage Passes 15 Percent in US
Worldwide, Firefox now holds 12.93 percent of the market, up from 11.79 percent in May. The open source browser commands a 15.82 percent usage share in the United States, and a whopping 39.02 percent in Germany. Australians are also big Firefox users, with the browser holding 24.23 percent of the market down under.

MySpace Rules the Web
For the week ending July 8, MySpace had 4.46 percent market share of visits, making it the top site on the Internet. The social networking site surpassed widely-used Web-based e-mail and portal sites including Yahoo Mail (4.42 percent); Yahoo (4.25 percent); Google (3.89 percent) and MySpace’s own e-mail site (2.85 percent). eBay ranks eighth on the list with 1.59 percent market share.

EU to issue rules cutting barriers to stock trade
The European Commission was scheduled to announce measures Tuesday to help break down barriers to stock and derivatives trading in Europe, a move it says should significantly reduce transaction costs across the bloc.

SEC commish to bigs: “Help Yourself”
The fact that Boards of Directors are allowed, under the current rules, to help their pals in management get to G5 status faster by granting them options in front of good news is not nearly so alarming as the fact that an SEC commissioner sees nothing wrong with it.

Related posts:

1. As XBRL mandate looms, SEC seeks urgent help with software
2. SEC’s new guidance for websites and blogs posted
3. SEC OKs websites and blogs for Reg. FD
4. IROs, not regulators should quash rumors
5. SEC to rule soon on websites for Reg. FD

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