The head of the US Securities and Exchange Commission met with Euronext’s regulators to discuss how they might work together if the NYSE-Euronext deal goes ahead.

SEC chairman Christopher Cox and the chairman’s committee of the Euronext regulators met in Lisbon to discuss the potential combination between the NYSE Group Inc. and Euronext NV into NYSE Euronext. The committee was represented by: commissioner Paul Koster, from the Authority for the Financial Markets in the Netherlands; chairman Michel Prada of France’s Autorité des Marchés Financiers; chairman Eddy Wymeersch, of the Commission Bancaire et Financière et des Assurances in Belgium; chairman Carlos Tavares, of Portugal’s Comissão do Mercado de Valores Mobiliários; and, the director of Markets Division, Sally Dewar, from the UK’s Financial Services Authority.

The regulators affirmed that joint ownership or affiliation of markets alone would not lead to regulation from one jurisdiction becoming applicable in the other and stated their shared belief in the importance of local regulation of local markets.

They also discussed, “the development of a possible framework for consultation and mutual cooperation in the interest of meeting their respective regulatory mandates in the areas of investor protection, orderly functioning and integrity of the markets,” the SEC reported.

“The United States is committed to close cooperation and collaboration with our partners in other nations as securities markets and financial services expand globally,” Cox said. “These meetings have gone far in focusing our joint efforts to promote healthy and increasingly efficient capital markets for the benefit of investors.”

On June 1, the NYSE and Euronext announced the signing of a merger agreement. The proposed holding company would be incorporated in the US, and its shares would be listed on NYSE and on Euronext Paris. The proposed combination is subject to prior authorizations by the respective Euronext regulators and, in some cases, the Ministers of Finance, on the European side and by the SEC.

“Regulators are not taking a position on the proposed combination. They recognize that shareholders will ultimately decide on whether the proposed combination will go forward. Therefore, the framework for regulatory cooperation would come into effect once shareholders and relevant authorities have given their final decisions,” the SEC noted.

“Regulators are conscious that markets are globalizing, to the potential benefit of investors everywhere, making increased international cooperation of regulators essential,” it added.