This week Hank Paulson, US Treasury secretary, described a “thicket” of regulation that is strangling US capital markets and diminishing their competitive position. Officials as diverse as Senator Charles Schumer and Dick Cheney, vice-president, have agreed that action is needed to restore US market competitiveness. Yet “pruning” Sarbanes-Oxley is not the only issue that can move the centre of global capital markets back over the tip of Manhattan.

The Securities and Exchange Commission faces an important decision that will be revealed on December 13 – one that will send a signal to global companies about the openness of US capital markets while also affecting the ability of US shareholders to hold an internationally diverse stock portfolio. The question is whether foreign companies listed on US markets can ever choose to withdraw their US listing.