Europe: ESMA reports on supervision of credit rating agencies

A notable feature of the European System of Financial Supervisors is that one of the European Supervisory Authorities - the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) - has exclusive supervisory responsibility for credit rating agencies (CRAs) in Europe. ESMA has recently published a report in which it provides an overview of its supervisory activities in this regard and the results of its first examination of three groups of CRAs: see here (pdf). Various recommendations are made with regard to control and processes within the CRAs and also with regard to the level of information disclosed by CRAs in respect of the criteria on which ratings are based.