Governance

Delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and deregistration from the Securities and Exchange Commission

As noted in the Report of the Directors, the Company delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and deregistered from the US Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC') on 2 January 2008. As a result, the Company now has a Level I American Depositary Receipt programme with the Bank of New York Mellon.

Prior to deregistration from the SEC, the Group Chief Executive and the Chief Financial Officer, in accordance with Section 404 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act 2002, provided certifications that there were no changes to the Company's internal control over financial reporting which materially affected, or would be reasonably likely to materially affect, the internal control procedures of the Company. The Company was also responsible for establishing and maintaining an adequate system of internal controls over financial reporting for the Group and used the framework developed by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (the 'COSO framework') which has been adopted as industry best practice for defining internal control structures to evaluate the effectiveness of that system. Following deregistration, the Company is no longer required to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as a foreign private issuer. However, the Directors recognise the benefits of the established system of internal controls over financial reporting and have therefore retained the key elements of those controls, including the COSO framework, under what is known as an 'Advanced Control Environment' programme.

Compliance statement

The Company applied all of the principles set out in section 1 of the Code for the period under review and has, throughout the year, complied with the detailed provisions set out therein.

The Company's auditors, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, are required to review whether the above statement reflects the Company's compliance with the nine provisions of the Code specified for their review by the Listing Rules of the UK Listing Authority and to report if it does not reflect such compliance. No such report has been made.