The UK television company ITV is attempting to buy out its small US shareholders, according to the Times, in order to get their numbers below the 300 threshold which requires compliance with US stock exchange regulations. ITV estimates the cost of providing separate US accounts at £3m per year. Instead it plans to offer small US shareholders a $500 bounty and 15% above the share price.

Given that US courts have long had jurisdictional problems, and do not seem to recognize that independent countries prefer to make their own rules, the move seems prudent.

The broadcaster’s move reflects mounting criticism by European companies of US listing corporate governance rules, which they say are too onerous for many businesses whose primary listing is outside the US. In recent months Lastminute.com, the online travel company, and Autonomy, the software group, have sought to quit Nasdaq because of the mounting cost of regulation. Siemens, the German electrical group, and Intershop Communications, a German software company, have also threatened to delist from US exchanges.

Among the benefits of a global economy is the ability to move production to where costs and overheads are lower, and to a more sympathetic tax regime. To this must be added the ability to locate and be listed where regulation is more sensible and proportionate (the UK is not exactly a financial sweatshop).

There are excess regulators in the EU, too, and this ability to shop around is precisely what they would like to stop. Their over-the-top regulation is actually restrained by the ability of companies to locate beyond their jurisdiction. That ability enables firms to be more efficient by avoiding the excess costs of compliance with their pointless and burdensome rules. It means less costly goods and services, which is good for all of us.