May 14, 2010
Thanks to Senator Al Franken it appears the Senate took the obvious step to end the conflict of interest associated with issuers paying the credit rating agencies for rating their new issues. The Franken amendment to the financial reform bill requires the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to assign the raters. This would mean that the rating agency has no reason to bend its rating to curry the favor of the issuer, since the issuer does not control whether they get hired in the future.
The Post reported on this amendment and then gave the rating agencies complaint, that this will remove the rating agencies incentive to improve their ratings. This is not true. As my friend Peter Eckstein has pointed out, it would be very easy for the SEC to keep a record of the accuracy of ratings (scoring upgrades and downgrades) and then assign business in proportion to the agencies’ relative track record. This will ensure that the agencies have incentive to improve their rating systems.
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