SEC Defers Adoption of Proposed Rating Agency Rules

The SEC announced at its open meeting today that it will defer until after Thanksgiving consideration of whether to adopt its proposal to impose additional requirements on nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRSROs) in order to address concerns about the integrity of their credit rating procedures and methodologies. The SEC had been scheduled to consider and vote today on these new rules, which are one of three pending SEC rulemaking initiatives relating to NRSROs. Commissioner Cox announced at the start of today’s meeting that rather than consider the NRSRO proposals in two separate meetings, they would combine consideration of all of them at a single meeting.

The other pending proposals would amend various rules and forms under the federal securities laws to reduce their reliance on NRSRO ratings. The SEC did not specify the date on which it would hold an open meeting to take up the combined proposals.