Euronext Liffe CEO Hugh Freedberg last week attacked plans by Deutsche Börse to drop the Liffe Connect electronic trading platform if its merger offer for Euronext is accepted.
He also reasserted Euronext's preference for a merger with New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) as a means of avoiding a monopolistic, vertically integrated European behemoth that he argued would inevitably run into trouble with competition authorities.
Comparing Liffe Connect favourably with the platform used by Deutsche Börse's derivatives exchange, Eurex, Freedberg told FO Week, "It's not a very good idea because Eurex's platform is old and out of date?. Why would you want to take a state of the art, up-to-date platform and dump it in favour of one that isn't?
"The fact that it is prepared to dump a superior platform reinforces our view that...