Brussels, 16/05/2011 (Agence Europe) - The ratings agency Standard & Poor's (S&P, a subsidiary of the American The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.), which also serves as a numbering agency in the United States and has a legal monopoly on the allocation and initial distribution of International Securities Identification Numbers (ISIN numbers), took various commitments on Monday 16 May to mollify the concerns of the European Commission expressed in November 2009 regarding a potential abuse of dominant position, due to excessive prices practised by S&P for the distribution of these numbers within the European Economic Area (EEA).
Standard & Poor's undertakes: - to waive all charges for users indirectly purchasing American ISIN codes (from information services providers) and to put an end to the current licensing agreements between it and these indirect users (which will themselves have to undertake not to extract, use or re-sell to third parties the CUSIP numbers (American national identification numbers from which the ISINs are derived); - to limit to $15,000 a year the price to access a database updated every day, which lists ISIN numbers and the databases relating to the securities in question for information service providers and users buying ISIN codes directly from the agency (direct users). In so doing, Standard & Poor's is separating this base information, which is distributed for the price indicated (indexed on inflation), from other added-value information which it used to distribute alongside this base information, allowing it to justify prices the Commission felt were excessive; - to submit an annual report to the Commission on the implementation of these commitments, which will be valid for five years.
Readers may recall that ISIN codes are based on the international standard ISO 6166 and derived from the CUSIP numbers (see above). They make it possible to identify securities in communications between banks, in compensation and settlement operations for transactions, in managing securities databases held by financial institutions and when notifying financial operations to the authorities. Standard & Poor's distributes American ISINs to information services providers, which in turn distribute them to certain financial establishments. Most financial institutions, however, prefer to go direct to the information services providers. Further to these commitments, the Commission has called for all interested parties to submit their opinions within one month. (F.G./transl.fl)