After sanctions had been imposed on Moscow by the West over Russia’s alleged role in the internal conflict in Ukraine, the Big Three credit rating agencies — Fitch, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s – downgraded their rating regarding Russia’s creditworthiness.
“After the recent cases with Big Three rating agencies issuing politicized and biased assessments of the state and development prospects of Russian economy, this issue is of particular relevance,” sous-sherpa Vadim Lukov told journalists, adding that Russia is not the first country to suffer from “rating aggression and rating dumping.”
The Big Three have also published negative outlooks for Mercosur countries for 2015. Mercosur is a sub-regional economic bloc comprising Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela alongside associate countries Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru.
These steps and other questionable actions have prompted criticism from numerous experts and lawmakers worldwide, who believe that the proprietary ratings by the three primary western credit rating agencies are largely based on their interpretation of geopolitics and do not reflect reality.