Impact of Extraterritorial Regulation on the Cross-border - Speech by John Grout, ACT

Good morning.

I am here to tell you how it feels as an issuer.

My fellow panellists are going to focus on the facts of US regulation and its extraterritorial impact. I am going to operate on a much less elevated level.

I want to talk rather about behavioural aspects… About how foreign businessmen think about US regulation.

Don’t confuse us with facts: the perceptions are what counts.

And it is as much perception of culture, as of black-letter law or regulation.

Foreigners pick up countries’ culture from simple things.

We are talking about extra-territoriality.

Just as the UK did a century before, the US often confuses itself with the world or – “carelessly” as Chris Bates put it earlier, includes the rest of the world in its own arrangements.