Washington, June 08: US market regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is taking a new look at rating agencies, now that their judgment has come to be questioned after the bankruptcy of many firms they had highly commended, a report said on Saturday. The SEC might either get out of the business of regulating credit rating firms or clamp down on an industry that has failed to anticipate some of the worst corporate meltdowns, the Commission said in a report.

The SEC report wonders whether the agency should remove its national designation of a select number of credit-rating agencies.
The government imprimatur, bestowed on four firms, The Washington Post reported, has drawn complaints from other credit-rating agencies, which say that there are no procedures, guidelines or explanation from the SEC about how to get that national designation.
"The way we oversee the major credit-rating firms," said an SEC official who wished to remain anonymous," is probably no longer adequate. Either we have to get out of the business of overseeing the agencies, or we have to do it more completely. We have to be in or out." Bureau Report