Some believed that these CEOs preferred to wait for Ottawa to bless domestic mergers before expanding into the US.

In 1996, the total value of domestic mergers and acquisitions was $653 billion; in 1997 it was $970 billion; last year, it jumped to $1.6 trillion.

It also improved its ranking in completed domestic merger and acquisition deals to a 23 percent market share.

That pales next to the value of all domestic mergers last year: $1.6 trillion, or 11 percent of the total capitalization of the stock market.

"We've seen domestic mergers and acquisitions activity rise, and that generally leads to spillover in cross-border deals," Ms. McCaughrin said.

Some overseas acquisitions have proved untimely, and some domestic mergers have shown little promise for bolstering shareholder returns.

Morgan Stanley was also the leading firm for domestic merger and acquisition transactions.

We are merely asking for cross-border mergers not to be treated differently from domestic mergers.

Global partnerships like that of MCI and British Telecom are clearly more challenging than domestic mergers.

Please name for me the last time a major domestic merger, in any industry, was not approved.