Europe: credit rating agencies - Parliament adopts Regulation

Yesterday the European Parliament voted by 569 votes to 47 to adopt, with amendments, the European Commission's proposal for a regulation concerning credit rating agencies. Further information is available in this press release from the European Parliament from where the following overview is taken:

The approved regulation sets up an obligation for all CRAs wishing to operate in the EU to register and comply with a set of rules. The approved provisions aim at enhancing transparency, independence and good governance of credit rating agencies, thus improving the quality and reliability of credit ratings and consumer's trust. The main objectives of the regulation are:

• To ensure that credit rating agencies avoid conflicts of interest;
• To increase transparency by setting disclosure obligations;
• To ensure an efficient registration and supervision framework at EU level;
• To improve the quality of the methodologies and the quality of ratings.

The Regulation will be directly applicable in the whole EU 20 days following its publication in the Official Journal. Member States will have six months to take the necessary measures to implement the new provisions".

A copy of the Regulation is available here (in the Word document titled Part 2) and will also be available here (hopefully in a more user friendly format).