Credit Rating Agencies' Liabilities: A Comparative and Functional Study

Editor

Patrick C. Leyens (Editor)

ISBN: 9789004733282

Published: October 2026

Format: Hardcover

Language: English

Publisher: Brill Nijhoff

Description

Credit rating agencies sit at the centre of modern financial markets, bridging information gaps between issuers and investors and feeding directly into bank capital requirements and investment mandates. Credit Rating Agencies' Liabilities: A Comparative and Functional Study asks a question regulators and litigants have circled since 2008: when a rating is wrong, who answers for it?

Conducted under the International Academy of Comparative Law, the study brings together national reports from 18 jurisdictions — including the EU, the United Kingdom, the United States, China, Australia, Singapore, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Türkiye and Israel — to compare how civil law and common law systems each handle the liability of rating agencies toward investors who relied on an inflated or mistaken rating.

Across nearly 700 pages, the volume traces a clear shift: regulators and courts increasingly treat ratings as professional assessments carrying a duty of care, not protected opinion, and jurisdictions with dedicated statutory liability regimes — the EU and China among them — are reshaping how the rest of the comparative landscape is likely to move.

In the news:

On 2 July 2026, ESMA fined Moody’s Deutschland GmbH €2,145,000 for breaches of the EU Credit Rating Agencies Regulation, citing incomplete and inaccurate data reporting and weak internal controls. It is a regulatory sanction, separate from the civil liability this study compares across 18 jurisdictions, but both show how the accountability net around rating agencies is tightening. Read our analysis: ESMA Fines Moody’s Germany: Rating Agency Accountability in 2026

Key Features

• National reports from 18 jurisdictions under one comparative framework, produced through the International Academy of Comparative Law
• Direct, practice-ready use for assessing exposure when a client relied on a rating that turned out to be wrong
• Tracks how statutory liability regimes in the EU and China are influencing common law negligent-misrepresentation approaches in the UK, US, Australia and Singapore
• Useful as the comparative baseline for drafting or reviewing rating-reliance clauses in cross-border financing and bond documentation
• Written for both the regulatory-design question (how should liability be structured) and the litigation question (what does a claimant actually have to prove)

Coverage

Civil liability of credit rating agencies; quasi-contractual liability approaches in civil law systems (Austria, Germany, Portugal, Türkiye); negligent misrepresentation in common law systems (Australia, Singapore, UK, US); the EU and Chinese statutory liability regimes; the gatekeeper function of rating agencies; the relationship between public regulation of agencies and private civil duties.

About the Editor

Patrick C. Leyens is a professor at the University of Bremen, where his research centres on corporate and capital markets law, comparative law and the regulation of financial intermediaries, including credit rating agencies.

Table of Contents

Part I: General Report — Comparative Foundations of Credit Rating Agency Liability. Part II: Civil Law Jurisdictions — Austria, Germany, Portugal, Türkiye. Part III: Common Law Jurisdictions — Australia, Singapore, United Kingdom, United States. Part IV: Mixed and Other Systems — Israel and Additional National Reports. Part V: The European Union's Statutory Liability Regime. Part VI: China's Statutory Liability Regime. Part VII: Cross-Jurisdictional Analysis and Functional Comparison.

Why buy this book?

Most of what is written on rating agency liability stays inside a single jurisdiction. This volume was built the other way round — eighteen national reports under one comparative framework — so a reader working a cross-border financing, bond issuance or regulatory question can see in one place how the EU's statutory regime compares with a common law negligent-misrepresentation claim, rather than piecing that comparison together from separate sources.

Keywords

credit rating agencies liability, comparative financial law, rating agency civil liability, EU credit rating regulation, negligent misrepresentation ratings, sovereign and corporate credit ratings law, International Academy of Comparative Law, financial gatekeepers regulation

Target Audience

Financial regulators and supervisory staff, institutional investors and their legal counsel, academic and law firm libraries covering comparative financial law, practitioners advising on cross-border bond and credit transactions

Genre

Financial Regulation, Comparative Law, Risk Management

Q&A

Q: What is the core question this book answers?
A: Whether and how a credit rating agency can be held civilly liable when investors lose money relying on an inflated or mistaken rating, compared across 18 jurisdictions.

Q: Which jurisdictions does the comparative study cover?
A: The EU, China, Austria, Germany, Portugal, Türkiye, Israel, Australia, Singapore, the United Kingdom and the United States, among others, organised under the International Academy of Comparative Law.

Q: How does the EU's approach differ from common law systems?
A: The EU and China have adopted dedicated statutory liability regimes for rating agencies, while common law courts in the UK, US, Australia and Singapore have generally relied on negligent misrepresentation doctrine instead.

Q: Is this book useful outside the EU context?
A: Yes — because it is organised as a functional comparison across 18 systems, it is a working reference for any cross-border financing, bond issuance or litigation question involving rating reliance, not only EU matters.

Q: Is checkout simple, and does the price include shipping?
A: Yes. The listed price includes worldwide shipping, checkout takes a few steps with no mandatory account registration, and payment is by card or PayPal.

Q: Where can I buy Credit Rating Agencies' Liabilities: A Comparative and Functional Study?
A: Directly from CLNZ Books, with worldwide shipping included in the price and institutional invoicing available on request.

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