Moody’s fined big by ESMA

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s securities markets regulator, has fined five entities in the Moody’s Group for a total of 3.7 million euros, Report informs referring to ESMA press release.

The ESMA issued public notices for breaches of the Credit Ratings Agencies Regulation (CRAR) regarding the issuance of credit ratings (ratings) in violation of the ban on issuing new ratings on entities where a credit rating agency (CRA) shareholder exceeds the 10 percent ownership threshold and/or is a board member of the rated entity.

According to the regulator, the CRA committed these violations from 2013 to 2017. The biggest fine was issued to Moody’s UK - 2.735 million euros.

The others were each fined the following amounts: Moody’s France – 280,000 euros; Moody’s Germany – 340,000 euros, Moody’s Italy and Moody’s Spain – 174,000 euros each.

Two years ago, ESMA fined three subsidiaries of another international rating agency, Fitch, for breaches in the avoidance of shareholder conflicts of interest. Then the total amount of the fine was 5.1 million euros.