The London Stock Exchange
When I worked for the Stock Exchange in the 80's it liked to be known as the International Stock Exchange. Nobody ever knew what you were talking about if you said you were calling from the ISE, but that's what it said on the letterhead and our cards. The whole house of cards was sent flying by the disaster that was TAURUS, an absurd project into which the Exchange through everyone on its payroll that could even spell 'settlement'.
Now the Exchange is a very different animal. It no longer regulates the stockbrokers, it no longer sets the Stock Exchange Exams (the professional qualifications for stockbrokers), it is not involved in settlement. It hardly imposes any listing rules, certainly on AIM, where all the Chinese companies want to list. It does not require accounts to be prepared to any particular standard, it does not require that companies be registered in the UK, or have their accounts prepared in any particular currency, or have their AGMs on any particular continent.
This is all explained rather nicely by Richard Northedge in the Spectator, here. Mr Northedge reckons that the Exchange is simply selling a bit of prestige to enhance the reputation of fundamentally flaky companies. Judging by NASDAQ's bid this is a very valuable service. I always believed that the role of the exchange to was to provide liquidity, but this was just me being naive. This, I guess, has been left to the futures exchanges. It is always said that analysts in the City "see through" window dressing in companies accounts, and are not fooled by the inflation of EPS figures achieved by creative accountancy. Maybe the same may be true for investors who buy shares in AIM companies because they feel that listing obligations represent a good protection against fraudulent enterprises. We shall see...