Financiers: U.S. driving corporations away

NEW YORK, April 27 (UPI) -- The continuing exodus of companies from the United States to nations that are less litigious and bureaucratic has U.S. financial experts worried.

The head of the New York Stock Exchange told a congressional panel unless the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act is revised and tort reform enacted, more big corporations will opt for non-U.S. domiciles, Newsday reported Thursday.

NYSE Group Chairman Marshall Carter told the House Capital Markets Subcommittee that most major initial public offerings in 2005 happened outside the United States.

"Despite a welcome resurgence in global equity financing, the U.S. is losing the competition for these new listings," he said.

Carter pointed to the section of Sarbanes-Oxley that requires companies to disclose more details about internal financial controls as unnecessarily burdensome. Former Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, now head of the Financial Services Forum, recommends changes to Sarbanes-Oxley.

Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., who chairs the subcommittee, also called for fewer disincentives to being based in the United States.

"These domestic issues, combined with increasingly efficient and liquid foreign markets, pose a significant challenge to the supremacy of U.S. capital markets," said Baker.