Credit rating agencies: A question of trust

For companies involved in the production and trade of energy, credit ratings agencies have played an important risk function, but confidence plummeted after their perceived failure to signal the financial crisis

As the fires were being put out from the global financial crisis, credit rating agencies (CRAs) were singled out as a major contributing factor to the economic disaster and have since faced the full ire of both US and European legislators.

In the US, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, ratified on July 21, repealed a provision from the Securities Act of 1933, which protected CRAs from being liable for their ratings.

Meanwhile, the European Commission (EC) proposed in