Rating agency meaning

In this issue: Commercial Data protection and cybersecurity Financial services Energy Environment IP Life sciences TMT Daily and weekly news alerts Trackers New and updated content Commercial Viagogo commits to better inform consumers of the resale of tickets The European Commission has confirmed that Viagogo, an online marketplace for second-hand event tickets, has pledged to stop pressuring consumers with excessive countdown prompts and to provide clearer details about ticket resale conditions in line with EU consumer protection rules. This follows numerous complaints submitted to the Commission and national consumer authorities. Viagogo will roll out website changes by the end of August 2024, including clearer ticket ranking in search results, fewer countdown notices on the site, and early disclosure on the ticket selection page of whether the ticket seller is a trader or another consumer. Viagogo has also committed, by the end of August 2024, to make changes and clarifications to several clauses...

UK developments FCA speech highlights need for clarity and higher standards in transition finance The Financial Conduct Authority has released a speech by Alicia Kedzierski, head of department in the sustainable finance division, delivered at the Loan Market Association’s Sustainable Finance Conference. Titled ‘Raising standards in transition finance: clarity, coherence, collaboration’, it emphasises the loan market’s pivotal role in funding the UK’s move to a low‑carbon economy. Kedzierski calls for clear, consistent definitions of ‘transition finance’ and for designing transition instruments so they neither overlap with nor compete against other product categories. See: LNB News 12/11/2025 14. Sources: Raising standards in transition finance: clarity, coherence, collaboration; and The sustainability‑linked loans market – two years on. UKEF announces reinsurance agreement with Brazil and clean growth initiatives ahead of COP30 UK Export Finance has entered a reinsurance agreement with Brazil’s export credit agency, ABGF—the first agreement ABGF has made with another export credit agency. The arrangement will allow UKEF‑backed guarantees to support Brazilian exports that include British content, prioritising...

In this issue: Air emissions and climate change Pollution and contamination Building energy efficiency Energy for environmental lawyers Environmental litigation and proceedings Environmental enforcement and prosecutions Environmental liability, insurance and due diligence ESG and sustainability Nature, biodiversity and habitat protection Waste Producer responsibility schemes for waste Water, flooding and drainage LexTalk®Environment: a Lexis®Nexis community News alerts—daily and weekly Updated and new content Trackers Latest Q&A Useful information Air emissions and climate change Battery deployment key to meet global climate targets In its report, the International Energy Agency (IEA) highlights that batteries are pivotal to delivering global energy and climate ambitions and addressing climate change. By 2030, storage capacity must expand sixfold, with batteries accounting for about 90% of new capacity and the remainder provided by pumped hydropower. See News Analysis: Battery deployment key to meet global climate targets. DfT opens consultation on revenue certainty...

What is microfinance? The Consultative Group to Assist the Poor (CGAP) describes ‘microfinance’ as the provision of loans, savings and other basic financial services to the poor. Stakeholders interpret microfinance through their own lenses and thus tend to define it accordingly. Governments regard it as social protection. Donors emphasise its capacity to achieve poverty reduction. Commercial insurers see a pathway to large under-served markets. Analysts use it to spotlight the scale of the ‘bottom of the pyramid’. Academics consider it a crucial financial service for sustainable economic growth. These views broadly mirror those for conventional insurance, except for the clearly specified target group: low-income people. Put simply, microfinance is a collection of practices created to widen access to financial services (including loans, savings products, insurance and remittance services) for low-income clients. Typically, these clients are drawn from the poor populations deemed ‘unbankable or uncreditworthy by commercial banks’, for whom traditional sources of finance—lending in particular—are unavailable. Taken together, these...

This Practice Note outlines the part ratings agencies play in the debt capital markets and sets out key documentary considerations for those agencies. Rating agencies and their role Rating agencies assign credit ratings to issuers of debt securities for public or private use. Issuers—whether corporate, sovereign, financial or other entities—may themselves be rated. That rating may equally apply to any debt securities they issue and are directly responsible for, where no credit enhancements are in place. Debt securities can be rated separately from the issuer where the issuer is a company created specifically to issue the debt (a special purpose vehicle (SPV)) or where the instruments benefit from credit enhancements (eg a guarantee) that strengthen them beyond the issuer’s standing rating. A credit rating is obtained on application by the issuer to one or more rating agencies. Rating agencies—key institutions The international credit ratings market is dominated by three major institutions: S&P, previously Standard & Poor’s Moody’s Fitch Ratings, known as...

This Practice Note serves as a practical introductory guide to sustainable finance for transactional banking and finance lawyers across the UK and EU contexts. It is also aimed at practitioners working on transactions and documentation within these jurisdictions. For an overview of the UK and EU regulatory landscape around sustainable finance, see Practice Note: —regulatory landscape. Detailed information on all areas of sustainable business, including the regulatory environment, can be found in our ESG and sustainability toolkit. This Practice Note explains the following: what is meant by sustainable finance and environmental, social and governance (ESG) key drivers behind sustainable finance principal sustainable finance products, including sustainability-linked and green loans, bonds, securitisations and derivatives market challenges, such as disclosure and ‘greenwashing’ information on market approaches and the main industry bodies, and where to find practical guidance on documentation issues What is meant by sustainable finance and ESG? Perspectives differ on the scope of sustainable finance, but a helpful description...