London’s Dominance in Shipping Seen Threatened by EU Regulation
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The Baltic Exchange, the London-based bourse whose data are used to set freight rates for about 75 percent of seaborne trade, said European moves to tighten controls over financial benchmarks may drive business abroad.
The European Commission is reviewing mandatory reporting of trade data to set benchmarks, following an almost three-month consultation prompted by the investigation into the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate. Some maritime companies would leave for Asia if that included shipping, the 268-year-old Baltic Exchange said in a submission last month, a copy of which was received by Bloomberg.