ANSVARSPÅDRAGENDE RATINGS ... - Juridisk Institut

mæssigheder 45 hos alle tre undersøgte ratingbureauer, der sammen sidder på
95% af ratingmarkedet. 46
I USA vedtog Kongressen i 2009 med the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act 47
nedsættelsen af en undersøgelseskomite, der skulle ”examine the cause of the
current financial and economic crisis in the United States” 48 . Denne komite fik
navnet the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission og udgav i juli 2011 The Financial
Crisis Inquiry Report:
“This crisis could not have happened without the rating agencies. Their
ratings helped the market soar and their downgrades through 2007
and 2008 wreaked havoc across markets and firms.” 49
Der er (så vidt vides) ikke rejst straffesager mod kreditvurderingsbureauerne
eller deres ansatte, men der verserer i øjeblikket flere civile sager anlagt af inve‐
storer, der har handlet i tillid til ratings, der senere har vist sig at være (meget)
for optimistiske.
En af de mere spektakulære sager er anlagt af CalPERS 50 , der er den største pri‐
vate pensionsfond i USA. Af stævningen fremgår, at CalPERS i 2006 erhvervede
værdipapirer for 1,3 milliarder dollars i tre forskellige Structured Investment
Vehicles (SIVs), der alle var ratede AAA. I 2007 og 2008 kollapsede SIV’erne, og
CalPERS havde på tidspunktet for stævningens udarbejdelse endnu ikke fastslået
sit præcis tab, men det anslås i stævningen til at udgøre omkring 1 milliard dol‐
lars.
Alle tre markedsførende ratingbureauer, Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s og Fitch, er
stævnede i sagen, idet de alle havde ratet SIV’erne. Af stævningen fremgår bl.a.:
”The credit ratings on the three SIVs ultimately proved to be wildly in‐
accurate and unreasonably high. The Rating Agencies’ methods used to
rate the SIVs and their underlying assets were seriously flawed in con‐
ception and incompetently applied. Moreover, the SIVs, which the Rat‐
ing Agencies represented by their “AAA” credit ratings as most likely
able to withstand an economic depression, were structured with Rating
Agency participation in a manner that used certain flawed assumptions
which ended up ensuring SIVs’ collapse when a recession actually oc‐
curred.” 51
45 Jf., United States Securities and Exchange Commission: Summary Report of Issues Identified in
the Commission Staff’s Examinations of Select Credit Rating Agencies. Juli 2008., s. 1f.
46 Jf., White, Lawrence J.: The Credit Rating Agencies. Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 24, no.
2, Spring 2010, S. 216f
47 Public Law 111‐21
48 The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report, s. xi.
49 Ibid., s. 222.
50 CalPERS er en forkortelse af California Public Employees’ Retirement System.
51 California Public Employees' Retirement Systems v. Moody's Corp et al, Superior Court of Cali‐
fornia, San Francisco County, No. 09‐490241, s. 1f.
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