On June 14-15 2012 the Stockholm Centre of Commercial Law arranged a conference on credit rating agencies. Credit rating agencies (CRAs) have during the last several decades had an increasingly more important role in the financial markets. Although credit rating agencies are private entities, their judgments on the credit worthiness of companies, sovereigns, bonds and structured financial products are essential for the financial markets.

The idea of the seminar has been to show the various activities of CRAs, to mirror these activities from various points of view and to elucidate the contractual nature of their involvements also in the light of tort law, and further to discuss the role of new regulations related to the CRAs.