The London Stock Exchange has a pretty good deal going when it comes to trade reporting. Right now, brokers are required to report equity trades to recognized trading venue, namely the LSE, regardless of whether the trades occur there, reports Financial News. That could change next year as new European Union trading rules go into effect that will open up the field. That’s where Project Boat sails in. Led by Merrill Lynch and nine other major investment banks in Europe –Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan, the LSE’s corporate brokers, have demurred – the project intends to develop a network aimed at competing with the exchange for revenues. “If this works,” a source told FN, “it would blow a hole” in the trade report data collated by the LSE, making that data less valuable.