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Europe, if you are a stock investor, is now bigger than the US. The landmark, passed last week, has been achieved despite the retirement of a net EU107.1bn (£72.4bn) in European equity over the past two years, according to Citigroup (NYSE:C - news). Its import goes far beyond the noise over the impact of Sarbanes-Oxley corporate governance rules.

That said, there are caveats. First, the definition of “Europe” is one that economists, market analysts, or even geographers would not normally recognise. It covers all of “emerging Europe” - including Turkey and Russia. This is “Europe plus Siberia and Anatolia”. By crossing the Urals, “Europe” includes Russia’s fuel reserves. By crossing the Bosphorus, it gains the Turkish economy, currently growing at more than 6 per cent. The population of this “Europe” is about 2.5 times that of the US. North America, including Canada and Mexico, might be a better comparison.

Yahoo!: European stocks top US

The push by business interests to ease the laws and rules laid down in response to the 2002 corporate scandals is getting a serious hearing in Washington that is giving the idea heightened visibility.

An array of companies and business leaders have been making the case that the requirements born of the crisis of corporate malfeasance are overly onerous and costly.

A high-profile committee of business, legal and academic figures put forward proposals in November to clip back corporate governance rules, class-action lawsuits against companies and auditors, and criminal prosecution of companies by the government.

A second group, formed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is releasing its report and recommendations Wednesday.

It calls for “quick and decisive adjustments in the U.S. legal and regulatory framework … to ensure that U.S. investor and business interests are best served in the global marketplace.” Among its key recommendations: Public companies should stop issuing quarterly earnings guidance and policymakers should seriously consider proposals to reduce the liability of accounting firms in litigation over company audits.

Montgomeryadvertiser: Sarbanes-Oxley under attack

Shareholders sued 120 companies for stock fraud this year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg and the Stanford Law School Securities Class Action Clearinghouse, the lowest total since 1996, a year after Congress passed laws to curb securities-fraud litigation.

The decline might have resulted in part from increased corporate governance rules and fraud prosecutions since 2002. That year, there were 267 stock-fraud lawsuits after an accounting scandal forced Enron to file the second-biggest bankruptcy case in U.S. history. Enron’s collapse led to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which imposed stricter accounting rules on companies.

Washingtonpost: Stock-Fraud Suits at 10-Year Low

SPIRENT, the telecoms testing group, yesterday blamed the cost of meeting tough new corporate governance rules in America for its plan to drop its New York listing.

The company, which has its primary listing in London, said that the Sarbanes-Oxley rules, introduced after the Enron collapse to regulate US-listed businesses better, were costing it too much.

Times Online: Cost of meeting new regulations inspires Spirent to quit NYSE