In addition, it would provide them with an incentive to develop better internal credit-rating systems.

ECONOMIST: Banking regulation

Some of the emails in the government suit do look bad, at least as presented in the lawsuit and just like a lot of the rating-agency internal emails that the SEC released in a 2008 report.

WSJ: Review & Outlook: Payback for a Downgrade?

Regarding how MF Global treated customer funds, the subcommittee will focus on whether the rating companies looked into the futures firm's internal processes and systems.

WSJ: MF Global Probe: Congress Presses Rating Firms

The suggested revision adds two ideas to the same basic regime: in deciding how much capital is needed, make greater use of, first, credit-rating agencies' measures of risk and, second, banks' internal risk-management models.

ECONOMIST: Economics focus