On October 2, 2015, the European Securities and Markets Authority published a final report on the possibility of establishing mappings of credit ratings published on the European Rating Platform (a public website to be launched by ESMA in 2016 which will allow comparability of all ratings given by rating agencies registered and authorized in the EU), as required under the amended Credit Rating Agencies Regulation. The aim of credit rating mapping would be to assist users of credit ratings in comparing ratings given by different credit agencies for the same entities. ESMA recommends that the European Commission not take any action at this point in terms of mapping and that ESMA should instead focus on constantly updating its information and data which allows users of credit ratings to carry out their own research. ESMA also published two sets of technical advice to the Commission. The first advice is on reducing sole and mechanistic reliance on external credit ratings which considers the measures in place to date to reduce reliance on credit ratings and recommends that efforts should focus on removing reliance on credit ratings instead of trying to remove references to credit ratings in all EU legislation. The second advice is on competition, choice and conflicts of interest in the credit rating industry which considers the impact of certain provisions of the CRA Regulation on competition, conflicts of interest and structured finance instruments which were introduced in 2013. The Commission must report to the European Parliament and Council by December 31, 2016 on whether references to credit ratings in EU legislation should be removed when the latest provisions of CRA are implemented. ESMA proposes to reassess the implementation of the CRA Regulation within the next three to five years.
The report and technical advice are available at: http://www.esma.europa.eu/news/ESMA-sees-progress-reform-EU-credit-rating-industry?t=326&o=home.
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