Brussels, 03/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) issued a public notice on 3 June accusing credit rating agency Standard and Poor's (S&P's Credit Market Services France SAS and S&P's Credit Market Services Europe Limited) of breaching EU Regulation 1060/2009 on credit rating agencies.
ESMA has been investigating the fact that S&P, on 10 November 2011 at 15: 57 CET, erroneously released to subscribers of its web-based Global Credit Portal (GCP) an email alert which stated in its header “France (Republic of) (Unsolicited Ratings): DOWNGRADE”, although S&P's credit rating of France had not changed. ESMA found that this incident was the result of a failure by S&P to meet certain organisational requirements set out in the CRA regulation, relating to sound internal control mechanisms, effective control and safeguard arrangements for information processing systems and decision-making procedures and organisational structures.
S&P has taken steps to end the infringement and therefore ESMA decided not to go beyond the stage of issuing a public notice. (EL)