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The head of the New York Stock Exchange has launched a blistering attack on the lack of regulation surrounding the London Stock Exchange’s junior Aim market.

John Thain, chief executive of the NYSE, criticised the junior market for its lack of corporate governance standards. Mr Thain, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, said he felt Aim “did not have any standards at all and anyone could list”.

Although he believed it was beginning to change its approach, he added that London “had to be careful not to damage its reputation by allowing in companies that are not well run”.

He also said that he felt that neither the LSE’s Official List nor Aim had such a strict approach to corporate governance as his own NYSE or Nasdaq, which is currently trying to buy the LSE. Many in London do not want an American takeover because they fear overly-stringent regulations, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, may be forced to apply to UK-quoted companies.

Telegraph.co.uk: NYSE chief attacks Aim

New York Stock Exchange CEO John Thain said New York would regain its footing against London, Hong Kong and other competitors in financial services once authorities act to scale back some of the more onerous provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley law.

Speaking at a panel discussion on risks in financial markets Friday at the World Economic Forum, Thain dismissed a story in the Financial Times in which a senior Lehman Brothers official said New York can only hope to staunch the bleeding.

“The United States has a great history of overreacting and then coming back,” Thain said.

U.S. financial executives and politicians have touted this week a report by McKinsey & Co that concluded London, Japan and other parts of Asia as growing in influence and jobs, while New York is on the decline. New York for the first time saw London outpace New York in initial public offerings in 2006, data show, amid a long decline in New York’s share of global IPO revenues.

MarketWatch: NYSE’s Thain: Business will come back

To win approval for his deal to purchase Euronext, the New York Stock Exchange chief executive, John Thain, said Wednesday in an interview in Paris, that there had been good progress on easing anxiety among companies and banks - the main users of the new exchange - to create a firewall to block the export of American rules to Europe.

Thain also said the U.S. financial markets regulator, the Securities Exchange Commission, had already made clear that corporate governance legislation known as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act does not apply outside the United States.

If the United States passed further laws seen as harmful by Europeans, Euronext would be protected by a foundation controlled by three people and based in the Netherlands.

NYSE’s offer was worth about $10 billion and its value has since climbed along with NYSE’s share price.

International Herald Tribune: NYSE chief woos Europe on exchange deal