RATING AGENCIES COULD BE LIABLE FOR INVESTOR LOSSES, CLAIMS STUDY

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Credit rating agencies could be held liable for investor losses on complex securities backed by risky US subprime mortgages and other assets, according to a new study.

Any such liability could dramatically change the rating business by upsetting the agencies' traditional position that their ratings are simply opinions covered by constitutional protections for free speech.

That argument has generally proved successful for the agencies in defending lawsuits brought by investors. But the study, released in draft form last week, contends that, in the huge and growing structured finance market, agencies have become too close to the deals they rate.

The study's authors say rating agencies have deviated from their traditional roles as providers of opinion and instead co-operate closely with investment bankers to help them secure the desired ratings to sell deals to investors.

“Unlike the traditional ratings process, in which a company can do little to change its risk characteristics in anticipation of issuance, in structured finance, the rating agency is often an active part of structuring the deal,” say Josh Rosner, consultant at Graham Fisher, the investment research firm, and Joseph Mason, associate finance professor at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

The big three ratings agencies – Moody's, Fitch and Standard & Poor's – were quick to dismiss this yesterday, saying their role was limited to producing a rating opinion and that their rating criteria were publicly available for investment banks to use to structure transactions.

Investors have yet to test this new line of attack in any lawsuit.

In the past, agencies have responded to investor lawsuits – including those filed after the default of Orange County in California and the collapse of Enron – with the claim that they are publishers of opinion protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution.



据最新发布的一份研究报告称，对于投资者在美国次级抵押贷款等风险资产支持的复杂证券上遭受的损失，信用评级机构可能承担责任。

如果评级机构确实须对此负责，那么评级机构历来坚持的理由——即它们的评级是受美国宪法言论自由条款保护的观点——可能会被推翻，从而极大改变信用评级业务的面貌。

总体而言，在投资者提起的法律诉讼中，评级机构的这一辩护理由颇为有效。但上周以初稿形式发布的上述研究报告认为，在规模巨大且不断增长的结构性金融产品市场上，评级机构与其所评级之交易的关系已变得过于密切。

该研究报告的作者称，评级机构已经偏离了它们以往作为意见提供者的角色，转而与投资银行家密切合作，帮助他们获得理想的评级，以求将产品出售给投资者。

报告的两位作者——投资研究公司Graham Fisher的咨询顾问约什•罗斯纳尔(Josh Rosner)和美国费城德雷塞尔大学(Drexel University)金融学副教授约瑟夫•梅森(Joseph Mason)称：“在传统评级程序中，企业很难在证券发行前改变其风险特性；但结构性金融产品领域则不同，在该领域中，评级机构在设计交易结构过程中通常扮演了颇为活跃的角色。”

全球三大评级机构——穆迪(Moody's)、惠誉(Fitch)和标准普尔(Standard & Poor's)昨日迅速对此予以否认，称它们的作用仅限于发布评级意见，投资银行可以利用它们公开发布的评级标准来设计交易结构。

目前，投资者尚未在任何诉讼中尝试以此为理由。

过去，对于投资者提起的诉讼，评级机构都以它们的观点受《美国宪法第一修正案》(First Amendment to the US Constitution)保护为由进行回应。这些诉讼包括加利福尼亚州橙县(Orange County)市政债券违约案和安然(Enron)破产后提起的诉讼等。