Today’s post previews a forthcoming article by this author entitled “Credit Rating Agencies and the Protection of the “Public Good” Designation: The Need to Readdress the Understanding of the Big Three’s Output’, to be published in the Business Law Review (the pre-published version can be found here ). The article, which aims to promote another reason for why the credit rating agencies not only survived the Financial Crisis, but increased its profitability, suggests that an underlying sentiment that exists within academia and policymaking corridors fundamentally protects the agencies’ position in an ideological manner. The proposal in the article is that by a. revealing this sentiment, and b. correcting that sentiment, we can begin to build an environment whereby the regulatory, legislative, and judicial focus is aimed more accurately, so that potentially a truly effective deterrent can be established. So, with that in mind, we will examine just some of the key components to the a...

Today’s post is concerned with the issue of banks closing their physical branches up and down the U.K., which has recently led the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and other politicians to call for an end to what is being described as an ‘epidemic’ of bank branch closures – McDonnell has pledged that Labour will tackle the issue by only permitting branches to be closed only after extensive consultation and the gaining of permission from the Financial Conduct Authority , should they win the next General Election. However, this post will examine the issue from the obvious point of the need to keep branches open, but also from the point of view of whether it is right, or indeed appropriate to force private companies to operate in a manner which benefits the public but not their own profit margins. Firstly, it is important to note the current state of bank branch closures in the U.K., because the rate is rapidly increasing. According to a House of Commons briefing paper, there wer...