Ratings agencies to answer to Spanish courts

Published on 21 February 2011 at 12:14

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The daily Público leads with the news of a suit that will shortly be filed against “the market oracles” in Spain’s highest criminal court. A dozen lawyers representing two organisations, the Union of Civil Liberties and the Observatory of economic and Social Rights, are to sue Moody´s, Standard and Poor's and Fitch for "directly manipulating markets" for their own and their customers’ benefit and thereby "undermining the interest of the state and small investors." The daily remarks that "the enormous sub-prime and hedge fund bubble" that prompted the economic crisis "would not have been possible without the maximum ratings” granted to dubious financial products, and further deplores the current activity of the rtaings gurus, who are now "intent on attacking the solvency of countries that were forced to take on debts to prevent the collapse of their economies."

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