Financial Services Action Plan - Update

On March 21, 2007, the London office authored an Alert Memorandum entitled, “Financial Services Action Plan - Update.” During the last year, the European securities market witnessed a number of significant developments in relation to the implementation of the European Commission’s Financial Services Action Plan, adopted in 1999 with the purpose of promoting the integration of European financial services and capital markets. This newsletter provides a description of these recent developments, focusing on issuers with a complex financial history under the Prospectus Directive, the treatment of employee stock options and free stock awards under the Prospectus Directive, the equivalence of certain GAAP to IFRS under the Prospectus Directive and the Transparency Directive, the implementation of the Transparency Directive, with a particular focus on the United Kingdom and the adoption of the Statutory Audit Directive.