03 September 2007

Credit-rating agencies to be the subject of sharp scrutiny in Europe

European authorities are to step up their investigations into the responsibility of creditrating agencies in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, as demands grow for greater regulatory control of their activities.

Charlie McCreevy, the Internal Market Commissioner, will talk to members of the Committee of European Securities Regulators on Wednesday after asking last week for an urgent meeting to examine the turmoil of this summer. It will provide an opportunity for the regulators who advise the European Commission on securities legislation to give their assessment of recent events. They also will update Mr McCreevy on the report on rating agencies that he commissioned from them last year, which will be ready early next year.

The former Irish Finance Minister has never hidden his reluctance to legislate on financial services, preferring softer measures, such as self-regulation. One European official said: “The fact that someone has lost money on the markets does not mean something has to be regulated.” In the past, however, Mr McCreevy has told the agencies, which award ratings for certain types of debt obligations, that they must improve their performance. He has questioned whether they suffer from a conflict of interest and has raised doubts over the quality of their judgment and whether they respond to changing events with sufficient speed.

Mr McCreevy will also face calls on Wednesday from the European Parliament for the EU to require rating agencies to operate more transparently. Socialist MEPs have tabled a debate on the sub-prime crisis and will argue that the underlying problems stem from a lack of clear regulation. Pervenche Berès, a French Socialist who chairs the Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, had asked Neelie Kroes, the Competition Commissioner, before summer to conduct an inquiry into rating agencies. The latest events are expected to reinforce that demand.

The urgency of Europe’s exposure to the US mortgage crisis was underlined at the weekend when an influential member of the European Central Bank’s governing council likened the credit squeeze to a 19th century bank run, which other central bankers have avoided saying. Axel Weber, President of the Bundesbank, said: “What we are seeing is basically what we see underlying all banking crises.”

European finance ministers will address the sub-prime mortgage crisis when they meet informally in Oporto on September 14. The economic situation and the financial markets are always on the agenda at their regular get-togethers, but this time there will be specific reference to recent events and their potential impact on Europe. One European Union official noted: “Financial stability is always an important item, but on this occasion a real, live experience will be injected into a bureaucratic exercise.”

The British Government is expected to argue against any hasty call for regulation, but other member states are happy that credit-rating agencies, along with hedge funds and private equity, are back on the EU agenda.

President Sarkozy of France wrote to Angela Merkel, Germany’s Chancellor and current G8 chairman, in mid-August, pressing for action to make credit-rating agencies more transparent. Pointing to the “very low levels of risk evaluation”, he said that governments must subject “to a careful examination” the exact role that the agencies play in assessing risks. He suggested that EU finance ministers liaise with central banks and the International Monetary Fund in looking for solutions to prevent a recurrence of the events of the summer.

Germany has backed Mr Sarkozy’s intervention and the decision to place the issue on the EU agenda. The intensification of EU interest in rating agencies comes after Kathleen Corbet, the president of Standard & Poor’s, left her post with immediate effect on Thursday after investor hostility to the agency’s role in the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

© Graham Bishop