–Fin Mins Explore Idea Of Penalities For Ratings Agencies
BRUSSELS (MNI) – Representatives from the major credit ratings
agencies will meet with European finance ministers on Friday as the bloc
presses ahead with plans to better regulate them.
The EU wants to force the credit ratings agencies to be more open
about the way they put their ratings decisions together and to open up
the market, which is currently dominated by three players, Standard and
Poors, Fitch and Moody’s.
The agencies are in the spotlight because of the role they played
in the sovereign debt crisis, after a number of ratings decisions – for
example on Greece and Ireland – had a large, and some say
disproportionate, market impact.
Belgian finance minister Didier Reynders – who currently holds the
rotating chair of the council of EU finance ministers – said on Tuesday
that Europe’s plans could involve penalties for credit ratings
agencies, if they were found to have made an incorrect decisions.
“There is a problem of transparency but also of responsibility,” he
said, “if it is a wrong analysis.”
He said he had organised a meeting between the finance ministers
and the credit ratings agencies later this week, to discuss the issues.
“What kind of penalties, we will see,” he said, adding that he
thought political agreement on the issue was possible “before the end of
the year.”
–Brussels: 0032 487 (0) 32 803 665, echarlton@marketnews.com
[TOPICS: MT$$$$,M$$FX$,M$$EC$,M$X$$$,M$$CR$,MGX$$$]
