Dutch shareholders protest London, Frankfurt stock exchange merger

The European Commission must stop the merge between the London Stock Exchange and Deutsche Borse, the Dutch association of stockholders VEB and other European colleagues demand in a letter sent to the European Commissioner for Competition. VEB director Paul Koster fears that the merged stock exchange will be so powerful that rival Euronext, which operates Amsterdam's stock exchange among others, will not be able to do much against it. "We will, if this merger goes through, go from three major exchanges to a quasi-monopoly of the newly formed stock market", he said to BNR. According to him, the new exchange will be 10 times as large as Euronext. Should this happen, Euronext and other small exchanges will be able to carry out their task - financing SME's in their countries - less well. "This merger will lead to considerably less competition and choice for investors", Koster said in the Telegraaf. "The merger also contradicts the principles of the Capital Markets Union."