ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a reform proposal that calls for the absolute and irreversible prohibition of the provision of additional services by credit rating agencies. The proposal, which in essence calls for the complete prohibition of any additional services that may be offered by the credit rating agencies, has been constructed so that technically it could be accepted and put into practice. The agency is prohibited from conditioning or threatening to condition the issuance of a credit rating on the purchasing of additional services. The proposal advanced here has been mentioned throughout so, in order to be clear, the reform proposal can be simplified by stating that it calls for the 'complete and irreversible prohibition of the provision of additional services by credit rating agencies'. There are a number of potential benefits from the implementation of this proposal. The first point to make is that this proposal does not take the agencies out of business, as other proposals aim to do.
