Welcome to the Corporate Briefing, where we review the latest developments in UK corporate law that you need to know about. In this month’s issue we discuss: FCA publishes final Listing Rules on sponsor competency Following on from the consultation at the end of 2023, the FCA has published its changes to the Listing Rules sourcebook, chapter 8 (sponsors), which take effect immediately. Takeover Panel consultation on the application of the Takeover Code A new Takeover Panel consultation proposes to narrow the scope of the companies subject to the Takeover Code. Digital Securities Sandbox The FCA and Bank of England have published a joint consultation paper on their proposals to implement and operate the Digital Securities Sandbox. Climate transition plans – new sector guidance The TPT has delivered two types of sector guidance to complement the Disclosure Framework – the TPT Sector Summary and the TPT Sector Deep Dives.

On 10 April 2024, Australia’s Federal Government announced far-reaching reforms to its merger control regime, most notably the introduction of a new single, mandatory and suspensory, merger control system. The reform package is due to come into effect from 1 January 2026 and will align Australia’s regime for reviewing M&A transactions from a competition perspective with the majority of other merger control regimes globally.

Welcome to the Corporate Briefing, where we review the latest developments in UK corporate law that you need to know about. In this month’s issue, we discuss: FTSE Russell comments on UK Listing Rule Reform In light of the changes proposed to the UK listing regime, FTSE Russell currently anticipate that the new Equity Share (Commercial Companies) and the Closed Ended Investment Fund categories will replace the Premium segment as the eligible index universe for the FTSE UK Index Series. FCA transformative proposals for UK Listing Regime – an Update Following the FCA’s consultation paper in December 2023 with wide reforms to the Listing regime, the FCA has published the remaining draft Listing Rules. Update report from the Parker Review An update report from the Parker Review on Ethnic Diversity highlights that 79% of FTSE 250 companies have met the target of at least one minority ethnic director on the board, ahead of the December 2024 deadline. Pre-emption Group – annual report 2022-2023 The Pre-emption Group has published its finding of the application by FTSE 350 companies of the new Pre-emption Group Statement of Principles, published in November 2022.