Given their well-known incorruptibility and infallibility, is it any wonder that ratings agencies would take exception to any suggestion that they might do wrong?
Well, that’s exactly what those outback yahoos in Australia seem to be implying. So Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s are picking up (most of) their toys and going home, withdrawing their applications to offer corporate debt ratings. The lily-white ratings agencies object to a new rule, coming into force on Jan 1., that would turn over disputes between the all-knowing and their idiot retail investor clients to a financial ombudsman.
But that “would effectively be second-guessing S&P’s analysts,” S&P cries! “This would ultimately create investor confusion and harm financial markets.” And S&P has never done anything like that.

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