How UK Leadership Scales Global Strategy

As an outcome of the introduction of the UKLR sourcebook in July 2024, both the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and FTSE Russell made substantial changes to their guidelines. In July 2024, the LSE verified amendments to its Admission and Disclosure Standards to reflect the collapse of the previous premium and basic listing sections into the brand-new commercial company category.

It then issued a summary and Frequently asked questions validating its view when the last UKLR sourcebook was released in July 2024. One of the procedures proposed as part of the Edinburgh Reforms in December 2022 was the facility of the Accelerated Settlement Taskforce, chaired by Charlie Geffen. The objective of the taskforce was to think about the possible advantages of the UK relocating to a T +1 securities settlement cycle and detail how this change could be executed.

On 19 February 2025, the UK government announced it accepted the suggestion and the UK market means to relocate to a T +1 settlement cycle on 11 October 2027. Among the suggestions from the UK Secondary Capital Raising Evaluation led to the facility in July 2022 of the Digitisation Taskforce, chaired by Sir Douglas Flint.

Scaling IT Systems for Global Firms

In July 2023, the taskforce published an Interim Report (read our summary here) which made a number of recommendations, consisting of: legislation must be advanced, and business articles of association altered, as quickly as practicable to stop the issuance of brand-new paper share certificates; the government needs to bring forward legislation to need dematerialisation of all share certificates at a future date; the government should talk to issuer and investor representatives on the preferred disposition of "residual" paper share interests and whether a time frame need to be imposed for the identification of untraced Ultimate Beneficial Owners (UBOs); andintermediaries should have a responsibility, as a condition of involvement in the clearing and settlement system, to put in location typical technology that allows them to react to UBO requests from companies within a very short time frame.

ANSR July UK PRs

Digitisation would target noted companies with a view to minimizing expenses and waste, and streamlining shareholder interaction. The report proposes additional procedures to ensure that UBOs within the intermediated securities chain would be able to work out shareholder rights that are presently only guaranteed for signed up shareholders, as well as measures to enhance communication in between business and UBOs.